


Call My Name

by Ella_Twitch



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (Cartoon 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, BJ's Kind of a Pervert, Beetlejuice Has Mood Ring Hair (Beetlejuice), Curses, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family, Forced Marriage, Humor, Keatlejuice - Freeform, Lydia Gets a New Wedding Dress, Lydia and Beetlejuice Argue Like a Married Couple, Married in Red Better Off Dead, Musical References, Neitherworld (Beetlejuice), Netherworld Legal System, Poltergeists, suicide references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 93,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26552431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ella_Twitch/pseuds/Ella_Twitch
Summary: When Lydia learns that she must either fulfill her contract with Betelgeuse that she made ten years ago or be fed to the Sandworms, she allows herself to be forced into a one-year engagement with the Ghost with the Most to determine whether or not marrying him for real is worth it. To her surprise, he's just as furious about the whole engagement as she is.
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 191
Kudos: 174





	1. 1998

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is my first work! Please be kind! I plan to update every Saturday, so look forward to new chapters soon.

It was a simple, slightly blurry polaroid, most likely because it had been taken so quickly. The crispest part of the picture was the letters written in ink just below the hazy white blobs: “No Feet?”

Lydia held the now old and fragile picture in her fingers for a moment before tucking it safely away in the photo album she had since she was fourteen, the same age she was when she had met the Maitlands and taken that picture. That was now ten years ago. In Lydia’s mind, it still felt like only a few weeks ago when the supernatural things that she always noticed far off in the distance since she was a kid came crashing down on her. Ghosts, possession, exorcism, etcetera.

Shaking her head, she shut the photo album. Needless to say, she didn’t really like thinking about exorcism, how close Adam and Barbara came to dying twice, and the risk she had taken in order to save them.

There was one thing, however, that she chose to keep from that traumatizing experience. Her parents didn’t really seem to notice, but Lydia knew Adam and Barbara did. She still wore the ebony band with the large jade stone in the center around her left ring finger. Not even she knew why, honestly, because she hated to even think about the poltergeist with the jack-o-lantern smile who seemed to be particularly handsy around Barbara. Of course, he would back off when she pushed him away, but still…

At night, Lydia still had nightmares about him returning to claim what was “his”. After all, she had promised to marry him, even if it was just to save the Maitlands. The fact that she was only fourteen didn’t seem to bother him, but that wasn’t very surprising. The ghost had very low standards, apparently, since when they first met, he was dozing in a robe on the roof patio of a brothel. 

But now, as an adult, Lydia knew that his return would be impossible. After the fateful night of Barbara bursting in on the back of a sandworm and swallowing the poltergeist whole, a full ten years had passed. If he were to come, he would have attempted to do so already. This time, however, with the Maitlands by her side, Lydia would be able to stand a chance even against his seemingly omnipotent powers. The Maitlands had been practicing their ghostly powers and excelled at an almost alarming rate, motivated by the desire to protect Lydia, who was practically their adopted daughter. 

Aside from the supernatural, Lydia had more important things to worry about. While most of her friends from high school had moved away to big universities, Lydia chose to stay in Winter River. Partially because she couldn’t imagine moving away from her new-found ghostly parents and home, and partially because she didn’t want to go to college, despite her mortal parents wanting her to. She got plenty of photography commissions here in Winter River, so why should she leave her home?

After signing the date, 1998, on the backs of the newest additions to her personal photo collection, Lydia tucked them into her album and sighed, looking out at the setting sun. That itself would make a pretty picture: the sun all red and the sky all orange over the sleepy town of Winter River. 

Because she had a commission early the next morning—the crazy newlyweds wanted to have their photos taken at sunrise of all times—Lydia decided to go to bed early to her chagrin. At heart, she was a night bird, thriving in darkness with the bats and bugs and ghosts. It was prime time for pictures, but with her wallet feeling a little flat from purchasing a new lens for her camera, she knew she couldn’t afford not taking this commission. Thus, she set her alarm for four-fifteen a.m. and flopped down on her bed. A few minutes later, she felt both the Maitlands press gentle kisses her to her cheek, and she smiled to herself before drifting off to sleep.

Lydia awoke to an electrifying jolt running through her body; her heart couldn’t calm itself, thumping wildly in her chest. Jackknifing up in bed, she searched the room and pressed a hand to her chest in an attempt to calm down. Still, she had that feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her something was wrong.

She enough, she began to smell smoke, and she saw a flicker of flame appear floating in the middle of her room. Daring to come closer, Lydia slipped one foot off the side of her bed, followed by the other as she slowly approached the flickering flame.

The flame suddenly erupted until it towered in the middle of her room. Lydia screamed and backed away as the flame got taller and wider, and a dark silhouette came into view. He was kneeling in the middle of the flame, screaming as the fire charred his clothes, skin, and hair. 

Lydia’s throat felt tight like she couldn’t even breathe or swallow. She had heard that scream before, once. It was the same scream she had heard as she instinctively reached out a red-gloved hand to pull a poltergeist out of the jaws of the sandworm that came bursting in through the ceiling, Barbara on its back. 

It was him. Lydia’s horrified brown eyes turned back towards the flame. Betelgeuse was burning. Betelgeuse was screaming. Betelgeuse felt pain. 

Again, the same way she had done on the night of her faux-wedding, Lydia thoughtlessly reached out to save the ghost from certain second-death, not even worrying about the flame as her hand entered it. Despite feeling waves of heat pulsing throughout her room, her hand felt no pain in the flames, her skin not even slightly burning. 

Her hand met his shoulder, and he turned, forcing Lydia to use all her self-control to not step away. Those same dark eyes that had bored into her at the their first meeting were now stark white, like he had no pupil or iris at all. They showed no signs of their previous jaundiced condition, just bright white light, like she had taken a black and white photo of the sun. 

Before she could react, he grabbed her wrist and squeezed. Despite her tugging wildly against his grip, she couldn’t free herself, and she heard her thin, delicate bones snap under his inhuman strength. Crying out in pain, she finally wrenched herself away, holding her wrist to her chest. 

When Charles and Delia ran into her bedroom to see what was going on, they found their daughter lying on the floor of her room. The blankets on her bed had been thrown off, and she was clutching her wrist and sobbing in pain and fear. 

The ride to the hospital was a teary blur for Lydia. She stared out the window as her parents quizzed her about what happened. Despite their pleas, she didn’t speak. After all, what could she possibly tell them that they would believe? The ghost they thought had been killed ten years ago had returned burning in flames and broken her wrist? They’d sooner believe Lydia’s old cat, Percy, had done it. 

Sure enough, the doctors concluded that her wrist was indeed broken and she would have to wear a cast for six weeks. Lydia groaned but had no other choice but to agree.

One the way back, Lydia stared down at her casted hand, rubbing the ring. The reasons he had broken her wrist had been circulating through her mind as the doctors had put on the cast, but she just now realized that it was the same hand as her ring. Was the broken wrist revenge for not carrying out their deal or had it been a pain-induced accident? Frowning, Lydia quickly decided the former. When he had grabbed her arm tightly and held her beside him during the wedding ceremony, she was able to look into those dark eyes and saw no hint of remorse. Nevertheless, she rubbed the ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lydia is still at home at 24, and there is a reason, which is to be discovered later on in the story. Also, the B-Man is here! Kinda... Don't worry, though, he certainly isn't gone for good. 
> 
> Also, please comment! I've never gotten responses to my work since this is my first time posting anything, so comments are very much appreciated!


	2. Unwelcome Visitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enough teasing, the time is now...
> 
> IT'S SHOWTIME!
> 
> (P.S.: this chapter is a little exposition-heavy, so sorry 'bout that)

Lydia sat up in the attic with the Maitlands as they worked on their model of the town. With a newly broken wrist, she couldn’t do much, but if there was anyone she could sit and relax with, it was Adam and Barbara. Adam was carving out the roof to the new gas station down the street while Barbara tenderly painted the flowers planted in the window sills of Mrs. Whitney’s coffee shop.

Eyeing the multicolored paints sitting by Barbara’s side, Lydia smiled and stuck out her casted wrist. The woman looked up at her in confusion. “Something wrong, Lydia?” She asked worriedly. “Do you need another aspirin?”

Lydia laughed. “No, I’m fine. I just want you to sign my cast.”

Smiling, the ghost dipped her paintbrush into the light blue paint, her favorite color, and carefully painted her name in cursive on Lydia’s cast.

“Adam,” Lydia smiled up at him with puppy-eyes despite the fact he was already coming over with a paintbrush in his hand.

Noticing the color of Barbara’s signature, he clucked his tongue and teased, “Stole my color.”

After he was rewarded from a chuckle from both his wife and Lydia, Adam stuck his brush into the red paint and signed his name just below his wife’s, his signature a little sloppier than hers.

“Are you going to get your parents’ names, too?” Barbara asked as she continued painting the flowers.

“I will later,” Lydia replied, leaning back in her chair and watching Barbara. “I wish I could help, but he broke my left hand.”

Barbara nodded absentmindedly before starting and looking up at her. “W-What? Who broke your wrist, Lydia?” she whispered shakily.

Lydia paled, realizing her mistake. Apparently, they had also caught Adam’s attention, because he had paused from his carving and was staring at Lydia with wide eyes.

“Lydia,” he murmured in a low voice when the girl didn’t respond, “who did that to you?”

Lydia sighed shakily and hugged her wrist to her chest, getting some red paint on her black shirt. “It’s-it’s nothing, really, I promise.” She lowered her head slightly. “I’ll tell you later, okay? I promise.”

Noticing Lydia’s discomfort, the ghostly couple decided to pretend to be appeased by this and nodded. She smiled in thanks and relaxed a little more in her chair.

Soon enough, the sun sunk below the horizon, winking goodnight to Lydia. She had been sitting at the window like she had been the night before, though this time she was studying her parents’ signatures on her cast. Her father had written “Dad” on the edge of her cast by her fingers with the ballpoint pen he was using to sign paperwork while Delia, who had been working on her latest “masterpiece” signed in paint like the Maitlands, her purple name taking its place nearer to the ghosts’.

Yawning, Lydia stood to get herself a late night snack. Since she had to cancel the photoshoot with the newlyweds, she could now stay up as late as she wanted, which would most likely be up to two or three in the morning, as usual, despite both sets of her parents pleading with her to rest more often because of her broken wrist. Nevertheless, Lydia was a night bird, and they wouldn’t be able to stop her. 

Passing by the family photo in the hall, Lydia smiled up at the picture of her, Charles, Delia, and two faint forms of the Maitlands sitting together in the living room. Lydia was eighteen in the photo, and her hair was slightly frazzled from running back and forth to the camera for the shot. Charles had his arm around Delia and was resting a hand on Lydia’s shoulder as she sat on her knees beneath them on the couch. Adam and Barbara’s faint silhouettes framed the small family, Barbara on the left by Delia, Adam on the right by Charles. That was probably her favorite picture out of the hundreds she’d ever taken.

As she opened the freezer, Lydia shivered a little as the wave of cold hit her directly in the face before she grabbed a tub of ice cream and set it on the counter. She opened the silverware drawer to grab a spoon only to feel another wave of cold, but this time, it wasn’t coming from the freezer. A small puff of steam escaped her lips, and Lydia dropped her spoon immediately tried to shield her bare arms, which were completely unprotected by her tank-top, from the freezing cold.

By now, Lydia knew the feeling of a ghost entering the room. She felt the sensation of the temperature dropping every day when Adam or Barbara came into her room. But this was different. A moment later, the hair on the nape of her neck stood as if electrified by an otherworldly energy. This she knew. This she recognized. It was the same energy from last night.

“N-No…” she stepped away from the center of the room where the cold and energy was emanating and rubbed her goosebump-riddled arms.

In a flash, Lydia’s eyes were assaulted by a bright green light, and two figures appeared in the middle of the room. One of them, she recognized immediately since she still saw him in her nightmares: Betelgeuse. He still had his wild light blond hair, void-like dark circles around his eyes, and that disgusting moldy moss framing his face and neck and clinging to the sides of his mouth. And yet, despite her vivid memories by the night before, he seemed to be…fine, like it had never happened, like he had never been ingulfed by a tower of flame. Not a spot of charring showed upon his body, and he didn’t even smell of smoke.

Slowly, Lydia tore her eyes away from the poltergeist, following the shriveled, practically skeletal hand that had an iron grip on the back of Betelgeuse’s neck to the ancient woman by his side. She had icy white hair that was styled in a sixties bob and a face with an icy expression to match. The wrinkles by the sides of her scowling mouth were so deep Lydia imaged the woman had been born frowning. She had a cigarette in her hand, and as she slowly lifted it to her withered lips, Lydia noticed the deep gash torn through her neck laced with a double string of pearls. The death wound puffed out a cloud of smoke as she took a drag from her cigarette.

“Lydia Deetz.”

Already, Lydia hated the way her name sounded on the woman’s lips. She clenched her unbroken hand into a fist, twisting herself towards the door, but she quickly lost control of her body and was forced down into a chair as the woman stared at her with piercing dark eyes. However, their cutting glare quickly shifted from her to Betelgeuse, and she gave the back of his neck a harsh squeeze.

“Well, is that her?” she demanded.

“Oh, that’s her alright,” the ghost responded, staring at Lydia with eyes so dead, so unfeeling that Lydia couldn’t help but shudder and turn her eyes away.

“Good. I would hate it if you had taken me to the wrong house, Betelgeuse.” The woman released his neck, and the ghost rolled his shoulders and rubbed the spot on his neck where the woman’s stiletto nails had dug into his flesh.

When the two ghosts just stood there and looked at her, Lydia finally got the courage to ask, “Wh…what do you want? Why are you here?”

She turned to glare at Betelgeuse. He had the audacity to be wearing his blood red—slightly torn—wedding clothes before her, sending chills up her back as repressed memories came flooding back.

“You’re in trouble~” Betelgeuse sing-songed in return, giving her the kind of smile that made the mortal girl want to strangle him despite the fact the was already dead.

However, Lydia restrained herself from throttling the ghost and looked at old woman. “And who are you?”

“This is—”

The woman interrupted him, pressing a wiry finger to his lips. “Quiet. I don’t need an introduction; I’m here on business only.”

Lydia stared at Betelgeuse in shock when he submitted to the older ghost’s response and bowed his head. “Business. Right.”

The woman shuffled over to the table where Lydia was standing. “I’ve heard about your encounter with the poltergeist Betelgeuse—”

She turned to look back at the ghost in question and cleared her throat. Quickly floating over to her, Betelgeuse pulled out one of the chairs of the table, and the woman sat down. Lydia merely watched with her mouth hanging open slightly.

“—and needless to say, the Netherworld courts are not happy.”

“With…Betelgeuse?” Lydia whispered hopefully.

The woman’s scowl deepened. “With _everyone_.”

Lydia sighed shakily, leaning back into her chair. “I don’t understand. All of this is Betelgeuse’s fault. What could I have done wrong? What could any of us have done wrong?”

The lady ghost withdrew an impossibly large book out of her suit jacket and set it on the table. The cover read “Netherworld Laws” in bold lettering. The woman looked back up at Beetlejuice and cleared her throat again, and the poltergeist flicked his hand at it. Immediately, the book flipped to what Lydia presumed was the desired page. She could still hardly believe her eyes.

“Law 107, Clause 4,” read the woman as she slid a pair of pointy, cat-eye glasses closer to her eyes, “‘No being shall make a deal with the poltergeist Betelgeuse without fulfilling both sides of the agreement, as ruled by his executive, Juno.” The woman slowly looked up from the page and glared pointedly at Lydia. “That’s me, by the way.” 

Lydia nodded slowly, her eyes widening as she noticed Adam and Barbara lingering by the kitchen doorway, too fearful to come in. Apparently Juno noticed as well because she nodded at Betelgeuse, who dragged them in with his ghostly powers against their wills.

“B-But you don’t have any authority over me!” Lydia argued. “I’m not from the Netherworld! I’m not dead!”

“Unfortunately for you, this is the only law that pertains across the realm of living and dead. No one is to break a deal with Betelgeuse, _period_.” The woman scowled back, standing and slamming her hand down on the able as she spoke the last word.

Lydia, Adam, and Barbara all flinched at Juno’s exclamation while Betelgeuse just stood by her side, seemingly numb.

“Additionally,” Juno continued, “The fact that Mr. and Mrs. Maitland did not allow Betelgeuse to _finish_ his side of their deal is frowned upon by not a grievous a crime as Miss Deetz here has committed.”

“What are you talking about?” Barbara interjected, laying a hand on Lydia’s arm. “She didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing more severe than what me and Adam have done.”

Juno sat back down and glanced over the lawbook. “Her situation was different. While you two idiots just didn’t finish the deal, Lydia directly went against the agreement. The deal they made was binding, and yet she still broke it despite the lines he drew being incredibly clear. That is a crime that cannot be forgiven.”

“She had no other choice!” Adam cried.

“Silence!” Juno glared at him, and a metal plate appeared over his mouth, much like the one Betelgeuse used on Barbara during the wedding ceremony. “Lydia did not complete her side of the deal, whether or not it was a deal that would help anyone else but Betelgeuse and _is against the law_.” She shot a glare at him. “Besides…” Juno pulled up a shimmering hand, conjuring a portal before her, “this evidence is pretty incriminating.”

As the wavering image quickly came in to focus, Lydia, Adam, and Barbara slowly leaned closer to watch.

Fourteen year old Lydia scuttled up the stairs to the attic and rushed to the model town, murmuring under her breath, “Where are you?”

When she finally saw the miniature poltergeist lounging on two gravestones, she bent over him and begged, “Help them, please!”

He slowly looked up from his meditation and grinned that snakey smile that sent shivers down Lydia’s spine even now. “Sure, I can help ‘em,” he said, still grinning away like a rotting jack-o-lantern, “but you gotta help me.”

“What?” young Lydia’s eyebrows crushed together in confusion. She couldn’t comprehend how she, a fourteen-year-old goth, could help a powerful ghost like him.

Betelgeuse straightened and twisted to face her while still sitting on the gravestone. “Look, I want out for good, and in order for me to do that— _tch_ —I gotta get married.”

Immediately, young Lydia’s face wrinkled in disgust as she realized what he was proposing: he was proposing.

“Hey, these aren’t my rules!” Betelgeuse added quickly. “Come to think of it, I don’t have any rules.” He laughed like a suffocating pig for a moment before continuing, “C’mon, c’mon, think of it as a marriage of inconvenience—we both get somethin’ outta it. I get out, you get to say your hitched to the most eligible bachelor since Valentino came over. We’re even, babe!”

Young Lydia stared at the poltergeist for a few moments, her dark brown eyes swimming with thought before nodding.

Barbara and Adam turned to stare at Lydia in shock, and the girl folded in on herself as she watched her younger self say, “Okay, just help them!”

Betelgeuse smiled a slimy smile and studied his nails for a moment before looking back up at her and nodding, “Sure,” he whispered, glee written all over his face as he shrugged his shoulders and looked up at her expectantly.

Young Lydia swallowed nervously and began, “Betelgeuse…”

The ghost leaned forward on the grave, his head bobbing as if he was drunk.

Taking another shaky breath, the girl closed her eyes as she continued, “Betelgeuse…”

Cockily, Betelgeuse brushed off his coat, still grinning up at her.

“Betelgeuse.”

Lightning flashed across the ghosts face as he snarled, “It’s showtime!”

Lydia waved her hand through the image to dispel it and shook her head. “Stop, I can’t watch anymore,” she murmured, her voice tight.

Juno leaned back in her chair. “Lydia Deetz will be coming to the Netherworld with me since she did not complete her side of the deal. There, she will stand trial.”

“But she’s innocent!” Barbara argued. “She didn’t know what she was getting into; she just wanted to save us!”

“I can’t do anything to change Miss Deetz’s mistakes, Mrs. Maitland.”

Lydia still sat in her chair while the ghosts shot back and forth at each other. Finally, she asked Betelgeuse off to the side, “How’s the court system in the Netherworld?”

Slowly Betelgeuse glanced over at her, the corners of his mouth pulling into a slight grimace, and he ran a grimy thumbnail across his pale, mold-spangled neck. Lydia swallowed nervously.

Having noticed Lydia’s small exchange with the poltergeist, Adam asked, “Is there any other way she can get out of this? Any loopholes?”

Juno sat back down, looking very prim and proper. “Well…there is…something…”

Everyone turned to look at her, even Betelgeuse. Apparently, not even he had heard about any loopholes, and he seemed more than eager to hear it now. Juno cleared her throat, taking another drag of her cigarette.

“If the deal is…fulfilled…then I will have no reason to bring Miss Deetz to Netherworld trial.”

Lydia paled, if that was even possible for her snow white complexion to do so. “But…that means…” her eyes unwillingly glanced up at the poltergeist standing next to Juno.

“That _means_ that you will have to do your part and commit to marrying Betelgeuse,” Juno finished for her. “It’s either that or facing Saturn’s sandworms.”

Just at the mention of sandworms, Betelgeuse’s entire body shivered, and Lydia rubbed the ring on her finger to stop herself from doing the same. “There’s no other way?”

Juno shook her head. “No.”

Lydia looked up at Adam and Barbara. “I guess I have no other choice, then. I have to do it.”

Juno stood as a green door appeared in the wall. “The courts gave me a year to come collect you. After your experience with Betelgeuse, they expected you to be harder to find. He will be staying with you during the probation to give you ample time to decide which you will choose. Goodnight, Miss Deetz.”

Without another word, Juno disappeared into the hazy green smoke of the Netherworld, leaving Lydia and the Maitlands stranded in the room with Betelgeuse. The poltergeist stood by the wall that Juno had exited through and tapped the toe of his shiny black combat boot on the floor before slowly dragging it in a circle towards them

“Welp. Byeeee…” He withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his suit pocket and floated up through the ceiling.

Almost as soon as he left, Barbara and Adam came down upon Lydia.

“Lydia, sweetie, we are so sorry,” Barbara whispered, tears coming to her eyes. “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be...”

“I can’t believe they’d make you marry that disgusting demon,” Adam chimed in.

Lydia shook her hand. “They’re not making me marry him, Adam. I have a choice.”

“Between that and death!”

Lydia sighed. “Look, I’ve thought about it already. I thought about it when I was fourteen, and I have a whole year to think about it now. Everything will be fine. I think I can come up with some sort of loophole in a year, don’t you think?” Lydia gave them her best smirk, despite the fact her heart was still rushing in her ears.

Luckily, the Maitlands didn’t seem to notice. They exchanged a worried glance and then nodded. “We’re sure you will, Lydia,” Adam smiled.

“And we’ll try to help you control that monster while he’s staying here,” Barbara added, her hand flickering with ghostly power.

Lydia laughed. “Thanks, guys.”

After bidding the Maitlands goodnight, Lydia slowly climbed up to her room. She had promised them she’d get more sleep, but by now, Lydia was a master liar. As soon as she closed her bedroom door, she locked it and rushed to the window. It was much more difficult pulling it up with only one hand, but eventually she managed to open it, the cool night breeze flowing into her room. Quickly Lydia pulled on a hoodie and stepped out onto the shingled incline up to the flat portion of the roof where she knew Betelgeuse would be.

Sure enough, when she peeked up onto the roof, Lydia saw a blood red blob sitting on the edge of the roof and spitting smoke. Before she could even say anything, he turned, cigarette between his teeth, and grunted, “Whaddyou want, babes?”

Lydia frowned and crossed her arms. “I wanted to talk to you. And I’m not your ‘babe’.”

A smirk played on Betelgeuse’s lips. “Not yet.”

It took all of Lydia’s self-control not to punt him off the edge of the roof. Instead, she sat down by his side, pulling her hoodie tighter around her shoulders.

Glancing over at her, Betelgeuse held out a cigarette towards her, but she just curled her lip. “I don’t smoke.”

“Mm, suit yourself. I’m just sayin’, you looked pissed enough for a cig.”

“You got that right,” Lydia sighed, leaning back on her unbroken hand. “But I don’t smoke. My parents would kill me.”

Betelgeuse laughed, smoke pouring out of his mouth. “Still a daddy’s girl, eh? Cute, real cute.”

“Don’t patronize me, demon!” Lydia yelled, summoning her hardest paint-peeling glare.

“I’m not a demon,” he replied, twitching eerily. “I’m a poltergeist. _Big_ difference.”

“Whatever.” Lydia rolled her eyes and rested her chin on her knees, staring down at the sleeping town of Winter River. “…so…what are your thoughts on this whole thing?”

“Welp, I know I don’t wanna be tossed to the sandworms…again.” He gave her a pointed frown. “But I know you’re not exactly fond of the idea of marryin’ me. Can’t imagine why.” He straightened his bowtie. “After all, we both get somethin’ outta it.”

Lydia wafted her hand at him dismissively. “I know, I know. You get out, and I get to say I’m hitched to the most eligible bachelor since Valentino came over.”

The poltergeist stared at her for a moment before visibly drooping. “Not really…”

“What do you mean?” Lydia looked over at him, studying his frowning face. To her surprise, she quickly realized this was probably the first time she’d seen him frown.

“I’m not gettin’ out this time.”

Lydia sighed. Still not a very clear answer. “What does ‘get out’ mean?”

“Gettin’ out. Yanno, it’s… _getting’ out_ ,” he gestured wildly with his hand in hopes to explain, but this seemed to only confuse the mortal woman even more. “Gettin’ out of the Netherworld.”

Paling, Lydia whipped her head towards him. “You mean…”

“Comin’ alive.” Betelgeuse crossed his arms and took a drag of his cigarette. “I was tryin’ to come alive again. But that’s impossible now, since Juno had the curse changed after our little _incident_.”

Silence fell over the two of them, falling down like the air suddenly thickened and weighed them both down. Lydia almost couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t stop staring at him, her eyes practically bugging out of her skull. Without another word, she stood and climbed back down to her window, leaving the ghost all alone up on the roof.

Slamming the window shut, Lydia lied down in bed and curled up in the covers. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to dream. She didn’t want to know that the ghost just wanted to be alive.

After a few minutes as tinges of pity swam in her chest, Lydia turned up to the ceiling, her stare and heart hardening. No. She wouldn’t feel pity for the monster. He tried to take away everything she loved, tried to force her to marry him, tried to destroy her life for selfish reasons by violent means. She wouldn’t let one little thing distract her from her hatred of him. And yet, she thought it a little funny how a girl who longed for death and a ghost who dreamed of life ended up in the same spot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ghost with the Most is here for real now! But why doesn't he remember the fire? Or does he? Will Lydia choose to finally marry him after all these years or face the sandworms instead? 
> 
> Also, important announcement! In the notes of my first chapter, I said that I would be updating twice a month. Well, thanks to the overwhelmingly positive responses from those of you who have read it, I'm happy to announce that I will be posting every Saturday! That right, more Lyds and the B-Guy every weekend! I hope you guys are excited as I am! 
> 
> By the way, there are two references to the Broadway in this chapter. Can you find them both?
> 
> Comments are very much appreciated! In fact, they're probably my favorite things about posting, so if you like it, please comment!


	3. We've Come for Your Daughter, Chuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betelgeuse is a bit too cocky and ends up earning him and Lydia a world of hurt. Barbara finds herself alone in the attic with the Ghost with the Most.

“Just…try not to…freak out…” Lydia told her parents as she led them downstairs.

Charles and Delia glanced at each other, both unable to read Lydia’s facial expression or tone to tell whether or not it was a good surprise or a bad surprise. Before she entered the kitchen door, Lydia turned to face them, her hand resting on the doorknob.

“You do trust me, though. Right?” she asked.

Although she wasn’t exactly comforted by their hesitant nods, Lydia opened the door for her parents and let them look in to the kitchen. At the dining room table sat Betelgeuse with Barbara and Adam standing next to him on either side. He had his legs pulled up onto the seat with him, one of his knees by his chin and the biggest dirt-eating grin on his face. Even Lydia was appalled.

“Hey, Chucklebucket. Hey, Debra.”

Charles fainted. Delia stiffened and turned so pale she looked almost as ghostly as Adam and Barbara. Unfortunately, their reactions only encouraged a roar of laughter from the poltergeist.

“Betelgeuse!” Lydia yelled, storming up to him. “I thought I told you not to scare them!”

“Too bad, so sad,” Betelgeuse yawned, apparently bored by this whole affair. “S’not my fault my awe-inspiring presence was too much for them.”

Lydia clenched her fists, but Betelgeuse only smirked in the face of her anger. “You’re cute when your mad.”

This. This was too much. Lydia boiled, her face screwing up and flushing bright red. However, she quickly cooled as the Maitlands shook their heads as if to tell her that whatever she was thinking about doing to him wasn’t worth it.

Letting go a sigh, Lydia turned to help her father up off the floor.

“Seriously, you should get mad at me more often.” Betelgeuse’s top rack of grimy teeth slid down over his bottom lip in a devious smirk. “I’d like that.”

Immediately, Lydia spun on her heel and socked the Ghost with the Most in the nose before crying out in pain and holding her casted wrist to her chest. About half a million curse words left Lydia’s mouth as Betelgeuse babbled nonsense on the floor, holding a hand to his nose.

Barbara glanced at her husband and nodded. They split, Adam rushing to Lydia and leading her away into the living room to check and see if her wrist was okay while Barbara lifted Betelgeuse under the armpits and dragged him upstairs. As she laid him on the floor of the attic and grabbed the first-aid kit, Barbara couldn’t help but feel just a tinge of pity for him. His entire nose was crushed inwards from the force of Lydia’s punch and was spurting dark, coagulated blood.

“Of all the stupid things I’ve seen you do…” Barbara murmured under her breath as she pulled out medical tape.

A laugh escaped the other ghost’s lips, and he shook his head, which only made more blood slosh out his nose. “She’s gotten strong, eh?”

"Yes, she has,” Barbara responded coldly, now realizing he was awake. “And so have I, so don’t even think about trying anything.” She shuddered as she remembered when they first met in the model graveyard.

Betelgeuse opened his dark eyes, which swiveled around dizzily to look at her. “Babbles.”

The tone he used was patronizing, and Barbara frowned. With a grunt, Betelgeuse began to sit up, and Barbara flinched to push him back down before realizing she’d have to touch him again. She didn’t move after that revelation. Betelgeuse still held a hand to his nose, but after a moment, he pulled it away, and Barbara was shocked to see it had reverted back to its original form, though it bore just a slightly more hawk-like bend to it.

“Babs. Berbs. Barbs,” he murmured, and Barbara began to suspect a broken nose wasn’t think only thing that resulted from Lydia’s punch. Then again, this was Betelgeuse. This could be completely normal…for him, anyways. “I wouldn’t try anything even if I wanted to.”

Barbara raised her eyebrows. “Because you’ve finally learned about the magical thing known as personal space?”

“No,” Betelgeuse grinned, leaning against the wall, and Barbara sighed deeply.

“Then why not? N-Not that I want you to, but I was just…curious…” Barbara nervously tucked a few curly strands of hair behind her ear.

“Mm’cause,” the ghost sighed, “I ain’t gon’ do it if me and Lyds have the deal. I don’t wanna get sent to the sandworms a’cuz I couldn’t keep these bad boys to myself.” He held up hands and wiggled them back and forth like jazz hands. “Besides…” He groaned, sinking down further against the wall, and the filthy, beaten cap with the metal “GUIDE” plate on it appeared on his head. He pushed it down over his eyes and continued, “I’ve gained a healthy respect for yas after I saw what you did with that sandworm.”

Barbara blinked in surprise and looked back at Betelgeuse. “Do you mean…you’re scared of me?”

At this, Betelgeuse pushed his hat back on his head so she could look him in the eyes. “Do I look scared, Bobbie?” he asked incredulously.

Barbara blushed and looked away, embarrassed half from the tone and half from this new nickname. “Well…I just thought…”

“I mean, yeah, sure, you poppin’ in on that sandworm was heckin’ scary ‘n all, but you yourself ain’t scary. Yer…like…a cutie, ya feel?”

Barbara sighed, stood, and began to walk towards the door. “I’m going to check on Lydia.”

“Suit yerself. I’ll be here.” The ghost pushed his hat back down over his eyes and said nothing more. 

Barbara walked downstairs to the living room where Adam and Lydia sat on the couch. Adam was still looking at her wrist, And Lydia was sniffling, hugging a pillow.

“How’s the wrist?” Barbara asked worriedly as she wrapped an arm around Lydia’s shaking shoulders.

“She’s alright now,” Adam sighed, leaning back. “I had to use some of that healing I’ve been practicing, but…” he smiled at Lydia, “she’s alright now.”

Barbara, however, did not smile. “As long as she doesn’t go around throwing punches. Lydia, you should have known better.”

“I know, I know!” Lydia gasped, tugging at her hair. “He just…he just makes me so angry!”

She burst into furious tears all over again, and Adam gave a weary sigh, looking at Barbara with a look that said, “I just got her down.”

“We know he does, honey, but you’re just going to have to live with it for now.”

“You mean with _him_. Forever,” Lydia sniffled.

Paling, Barbara glanced worriedly at her husband and put her arms around Lydia.

Meanwhile upstairs, Betelgeuse was startled back to consciousness by the piercing yells of Lydia downstairs: _“He just makes me so angry!”_

He wasn’t exactly excited about being woken up to that noise. It was high and pitchy. She really needed to go for the high A instead of settling for the G sharp below it, but that wasn’t any of his business. Scouring the large attic, Betelgeuse eventually found the sheets with the eyeholes cut in them that the Maitlands tried using to scare Lydia off and balled one of them up under his head. The other he pulled around his shoulders as he tried to shut off again.

 _Was it his business?_ The ghost’s eyes opened, almost against his will. Nope. No way was he getting involved in Lydia’s young adult angst. Been there, done that, got the scars from it. Still, it nagged at him like that one time he woke up with a vampire bat on his face. The part that interested him was less of Lydia’s angsting and more of what she was angsting about. Last time, if he remembered correctly, it was because her stepmom and dad didn’t “get” her. He understood that for sure, but it’s not like he—he, the Ghost with the Most, whom she just punched in the schnoz—was gonna go down there and mother-hen a whining mortal girl. She had the Maitlands for that.

But, still, he was curious, curious enough to turn invisible and phase through the floor to the living room.

Lydia sat on the couch, both her ghostly parents by her side. The way they were fawning and cooing over her like she was a baby made Betelgeuse sick. What were they doing? Honestly, this is why he was glad they never got to be parents while they were alive. Still, their paler than usual gave him the impression they were talking about something juicy, so he listened in. 

“You’re not really going to…?”

“Of _course_ I’m not!” Lydia responded, looking up at Barbara, who had posed the question. “I wouldn’t marry him even if it meant death!”

Betelgeuse swallowed. Lyds could get her wish if she wasn’t careful. Luckily, the Maitlands seemed to know this.

Adam rested a hand on Lydia’s shoulder. “Are you sure…? What if…what if he’s really not that bad? Maybe he’s…better once you get to know him?”

Lydia glowered at him through her tears. “Really, Adam?”

He sighed. “I’m just trying to be optimistic. I just don’t…I don’t want to see you get eaten by sandworms.”

There was that word again. Betelgeuse shivered. No, no, no. No sandworms. There weren’t any here. He wasn’t on Saturn. He rubbed his arms and scowled at Adam for just saying that word, and Adam shuddered almost unconsciously. Almost.

“I don’t think we’re alone…” he murmured, looking around.

The heads of the other two women shot up, scanning the room. Barbara’s eyes stopped by Betelgeuse for a moment, and he felt the power emanating from her for a moment. Luckily for him, she was still learning and passed over him like a tripped out security camera. If he could breathe, Betelgeuse would have sighed in relief.

“It could be my imagination.” Adam looked back at Lydia and rubbed her arm reassuringly. “What we’re meaning to say, Lydia, is that we think you should think about it a little more before making a decision. You have a whole year, after all.”

Betelgeuse groaned deep in his throat. He forgot about that part, but he honestly didn’t think he’d survive staying in this house for a year. Between Lydia’s hatred towards him, the Deetz’s cringe-inducing mundaneness, and Adam and Barbara constantly on his tail, he was just about ready to die all over again. 

Slowly he floated back up to the attic and lied down with his stolen sheets. Time to shut off. No more time for thinking. Thinking is what got him into this mess, so he was resolved to do no more of it.

He never felt so twitchy. Despite having slept for over a decade straight on concrete before, the hardwood floor of the attic just seemed to make it worse. He hated it. He hated everything about this. The Maitlands, Charles, Delia, this house, Lydia. His inert heart sank in his chest. If Lydia wasn’t so stubborn, they could just do the deed and never have to worry about it again. He could go away, and she’d never have to deal with anything that had to do with him, other than changing her last name to Shaggoth and perhaps wearing that ring. They would be married, and he wouldn’t have to see another sandworm again in his afterlife.

Wandering down to his left hand, Betelgeuse’s eyes fixed onto his own ring finger, which bore a raw ring burned into his flesh between his hand and first knuckle like a disgusting, rotting collar, and he scratched it miserably. _Married…again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the cold hard truth descends upon everyone in the household: the Ghost with the Most is here to stay! Will Lydia be able to handle him for a full year? Will Betelgeuse be able to hang on to what little sanity he has left?
> 
> And what's the deal with the mark on Betelgeuse's finger?
> 
> Thanks for stopping by! I update on Saturdays. Please leave me a comment if you enjoyed the chapter; I love feedback!


	4. A Mother's Instinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Maitlands return to their attic after comforting Lydia and discover they are not alone; Barbara sees a new side of this dodecahedron of a poltergeist.

The Maitlands saw Lydia out on her way to the store to pick up more film before heading back upstairs. Sharing a glance, they wondered how on earth they could help Lydia with her poltergeist problem. After all, this was no simple matter of taming a sandworm and feeding Betelgeuse to it now that the Netherworld legal system was in the way.

Adam walked behind Barbara as the ascended the stairs, staring down at his shoes thoughtfully. Thus, he didn’t realize that his wife had stopped in the doorway of the attic and slammed into her back.

“Something wrong, hon…?” he trailed off as he followed her intense, unblinking gaze to the lump of sheets in the corner.

Creeping around his wife, Adam slowly entered the attic, and Barbara followed, keeping a tight grip on the back of his shirt as if she was ready to yank him away from any potential danger. Despite both his and Barbara’s better judgements, Adam knelt and pulled gently at one of the sheets. It fell without resistance, and Adam and Barbara both took sharp, useless breaths.

_Betelgeuse_ , their flabbergasted minds realized in unison.

_Betelgeuse_ , Adam repeated to himself, gulping nervously as he stared at the slumbering poltergeist tucked away in the corner.

“Betelgeuse?” Barbara whispered.

As if sensing his name had been recited three times, the poltergeist’s jaundiced eyes opened to a slit, and he rumbled a groan. Immediately, Adam scrambled away when he realized Betelgeuse was waking up, but Barbara stayed still, staring down at him.

“Barbara,” Adam whined, gesturing wildly for her to flee with him.

However, his wife didn’t respond. She stood still, very still, with her arms hanging loosely at her sides. After a moment, she squatted, edged closer, and touched the poltergeist on the shoulder.

Adam winced, waiting for Barbara to lose her hand, but nothing happened. Betelgeuse stayed still, looking more like a corpse than ever before. Although Adam couldn’t see it, Barbara’s hand was shaking as she grasped his shoulder and gently shook him.

“Betelgeuse?”

He reached up and lazily bumped her hand off his shoulder. “Lemme ‘lone, babs,” he murmured. The words sloshed out of his mouth like water.

“You could sleep somewhere more comfortable than the floor,” she suggested, watching with dismay as the ghost curled up into a ball on the floor, “like a couch or a bed.”

Betelgeuse did not respond, and Barbara stood slowly, deciding that perhaps it was best just to let him sleep. As she left, she did not see that Betelgeuse’s eyes were open, staring down at the floor. _Why did she do that? Why was she being so…so..._

“Why did you do that?” Adam whispered shakily, glancing over his shoulder at the still form of Betelgeuse as he shut the attic door behind them.

Barbara looked over at her husband. Adam didn’t usually question her on her decisions, usually because they were often of one mind. What Adam thought, Barbara was also thinking, and vice versa. This time wasn’t different either; not even she knew why she did what she did.

“Barbara?”

“Hmm?” she looked up, realizing she had been staring off into space.

“Are you okay?” Adam asked worriedly, touching his wife’s arm.

Barbara smiled a little. “I’m fine, Adam. I’m just…worried for Lydia.”

“Me too,” Adam replied glumly, leading her back downstairs. “I can only hope we can find a way to get her out of this.”

Barbara sat down at the table, her mind still whirring with complementation. As Adam walked over to set water to boil for tea, he heard his wife say quietly, “He’s in danger, too.”

“Huh?” He looked up as he set the kettle on the stove.

Barbara was staring again, that blank, wide-eyed stare that honestly frightened Adam a little bit. She looked so frozen, so lifeless that it made Adam remember that’s what they were: dead.

“He’s in danger, too,” Barbara replied, still gazing out the window at the potted plants sitting outside on the window sill, “Betelgeuse I mean.”

Suddenly, Adam laughed, and Barbara’s head jerked towards him like it was pulled on a string. He stopped. Barbara was scowling. “He is. We read it in the Handbook: Sandworms are one of the few things that can kill a ghost.”

“Well, sure, but it didn’t get rid of him last time,” Adam murmured. Because his back was turned, Barbara couldn’t read his expression.

“That’s true…” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Perhaps I should ask him why that was. How he came back, anyway.”

“You’re…not scared of him? Adam asked as the kettle whistled loudly, and he poured the steaming water into two teacups with their waiting teabags.

Barbara stood and paced around the room, wringing her hands while Adam watched with concern. “No… I-I mean yes, a little. He was terrible to me when we first summoned him in the graveyard but…” she trailed off, not knowing how to explain the strange, conflicting feelings in her heart.

“But…?” Adam sat down with two steeping cups of tea, and Barbara plunked down in seat opposite him, drooping in defeat.

“But I’m not afraid of him, not as much as I used to be, at least. I’m…I feel bad for him.”

Adams head perked up from blowing on his tea. “What?”

Barbara wiped her reddening nose. “It’s stupid, I know. He’s a millennia older than me and he tried to do some terrible things, but, Adam…” she looked up, placing her hand over his. “When I saw him sleeping on the floor… I…I couldn’t help but think…maybe he doesn’t want to marry Lydia either. Maybe he just doesn’t want to die and that’s why he’s going along with all this. Sure, he’s a big pervert. I would know from experience. But…maybe he had a reason for wanting to marry Lydia back then other than… _that_.” She shuddered a little. “Maybe he had a good reason, in his mind at least. And maybe he has a good reason now.”

Adam sighed deeply, stared down at his cup of tea, and stirred it with his finger, the heat not bothering his dead nerves.

“Barbara… I know that you’re used to nurturing people, but this is different. _Much_ different. He isn’t like Lydia, honey. He’s…he’s…well, a demon. Besides,” he took a sip of tea, “I don’t think he would let you help him if you offered. He just pushed you away when you tried earlier.”

Slowly, a determined frown grew onto Barbara’s face. “Then I’ll just try again.”

“Barbara!” Adam protested as his wife stood.

“Adam,” she replied, staring back down at him with such a resolute gaze on her face, Adam had to sit back down.

“Alright… I’ll, just, um…microwave your tea when you get back,” he sighed.

Smiling weakly, Barbara ran a hand lovingly down Adam’s cheek before hurrying back upstairs. Just as she hoped, she found the poltergeist asleep on the floor like she left him. It chilled Barbara to see him like that. It almost seemed as if he had just died.

Her hands trembled as she shuffled closer, trying to make as little sound as possible, and Betelgeuse slept on, not even moving in his sleep. Slowly kneeling by his side, Barbara debated on waking him or not. She eventually concluded that she would only receive the same response as before and worked her hands beneath his knees and back.

Unfortunately, he was even heavier than Barbara imagined; it was as if gravity suddenly increased on him while he was asleep. Puffing out strained yet meaningless breaths, Barbara lifted him and staggered over to the couch next to the model house, accidentally dropping him gracelessly upon the couch. She gasped and stood still, waiting for him to snap awake and hurt her.

Despite having been lifted, jolted around, and suddenly dropped, Betelgeuse didn’t stir even as his head lolled back on the arm of the couch. In his sleep, his mouth opened slightly, and a black widow spider crawled out. Barbara reeled in disgust for a moment before picking up the spider and carrying it over to the open window.

After watching it skitter away, Barbara turned back and leaned over the poltergeist to make sure he was really still asleep. He seemed to be as still and dead as before. Barbara touched his cool cheek. Nothing.

Satisfied by this, she draped one of the sheets over him and walked back downstairs where Adam was waiting anxiously, fiddling with his hands. Her cup of tea sat across from him, still steaming.

“So… How did it go?” he asked, looking up at her with wide, almost child-like eyes.

Barbara sat down and took a sip of tea before looking up at Adam with soft brown eyes as warm as the tea she held in her hands. “It went well,” she whispered in a small voice, her lips curving into a shy smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy! Me again, thanks for reading! I kind of experimented a bit with the chapter, first putting it more in the Maitlands/Barbara's perspective and trying something new with the ole B-man. Sorry if he seemed a little OOC. He'll be back to his old chaotic self soon. Then again, wouldn't you be groggy and grumpy if you were a 600 year old poltergeist interrupted from trying to take a nap?
> 
> If you liked it, please don't be afraid to comment! Comments make my day, and it gives me insights of what y'all like and don't like to see.


	5. Not Everything Is about You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, it's time to look deep within your writer's soul and see what's really deep down in there. Putting usually untouchable characters into agonizing amounts of pain? You know I love it. 
> 
> Lydia makes a bad decision, and the Maitlands have to clean up the consequences. Adam is confused but still does his best.
> 
> I don't know if this applies for anyone, but I want to put it here just in case: this chapter does have a threat of a housefire, so if that's a trigger for you guys, you can read all the way up to, "As Betelgeuse lounged on the shag carpet, he suddenly felt a sharp tingling in the bottoms of his feet. What was that? He sat up, peeling off his boots and rubbing his socked feet." I will put a small summary of what happens after that in the End Notes.

Lydia was out on the roof again, just her, her astronomy book, and a small telescope she received for her twenty-first birthday. This time, she was smarter about what she wore: an oversized sweater and leggings instead of shorts and a tank top.

But even with this arsenal against the chill of the night, it wasn’t enough when a sudden wave of cold overtook her. Her hands trembled, and she pulled them into her sleeves, trying to ignore the feeling of dread building in her chest.

Not even turning away from her telescope, Lydia murmured, “What do you want, Mr. Orion’s Armpit?”

She heard the poltergeist blow a raspberry, and her view of the stars was suddenly obstructed by a dark mass. When she pulled away from her telescope, she found Betelgeuse had perched himself in front of her and her telescope on the edge of the roof’s railing.

“Aw, you wound me,” he grinned, his lips prying apart to show his decaying teeth. Raising an eyebrow, he peered down at her astronomy book and asked, “What are we up to tonight?”

“There is no ‘we’, and it’s none of your business.” Lydia snapped the book shut, not looking up at him.

Betelgeuse _humphed_ , made a disgusting sound in back of his throat, and shot a mossy spitball over the side of the roof.

Lydia made a face. “And you wonder why I won’t marry you,” she grumbled.

Immediately, Betelgeuse’s head whipped around like an owl noticing prey. “I don’t know what you’re talking ‘bout. We’re gonna get married…” His hands released the metal railing, and he leaned forward on nothing, “ _Right_?” His lip curled up into a snarl.

“I-I’m not afraid of you anymore, Betelgeuse,” Lydia replied, her head held high, looking down into his dead, gray eyes.

Leaning back, Betelgeuse repositioned himself on the railing. “Fine. Then I guess you’ll get a taste of your own medicine…and the sandworms will get a taste of you.”

A smile played on Lydia’s lips. “They only eat ghosts. I’m pretty sure that’s _you_.”

Despite her threat, Betelgeuse didn’t seem intimidated. Instead, he raised up one of his feet, hooking the toe of his shiny black combat boot under her chin. “Oh, Lydia. So silly and young. You’re not as smart as you think you are.”

Her throat bumped against his shoe as she swallowed anxiously, and Betelgeuse smiled.

“The sandworms don’t care whether you’re a ghost or not. Sandworms are like life itself: not fair, not just, and definitely not choosy. If I’m going out, my dear, we’ll go out together. How romantic…”

At this, Lydia shoved his foot away. “I’m never going to marry you! Never!”

The poltergeist’s eyes glinted in the darkness with an emotion Lydia couldn’t decipher. “Don’t be so quick to make decisions. That’s what got us in this mess the first time.”

“That wasn’t my fault!” Lydia screeched, her face reddening. “That was all you! You were the one who wanted to marry me in the first place!”

“You were the one who said yes.”

There was a pause, pregnant with tension as Lydia stared at the ghost before her. It was like lightning was crackling between them as they faced off silently.

It wasn’t fair, none of this. This whole situation, even the moment they were in. Lydia was steaming with anger while Betelgeuse sat calmly on the railing. Betelgeuse had everything to gain, and Lydia faced a lose-lose situation: marry a wicked millennia-old ghost or refuse and die, disappearing into oblivion. Even if she chose to survive, her life would be surrendered to…to Betelgeuse. She shuddered. Even now in simple banter, she felt powerless compared to him. He was powerful even without using his magic, and Lydia felt she was just a small, scared girl compared to him.

“Look…” Betelgeuse got to his feet, surprisingly graceful despite his joints creaking and snapping as if his bones were made of wood. “All I’m sayin’ is, is dyin’ really worth all the trouble of marrying me? I don’t think so.”

Lydia sighed a little as she thought of it. “That’s true…after we’re married, you could just go away.”

“Well…”

“What now?” Lydia groaned.

Betelgeuse raised his hands defensively. “Don’t look at me like that, babes!” One of his hands moved to scratch the back of his neck. “I thought that, too, at first, but after looking over the contract…”

“What, is it going to force us to stay together?”

“Basically?” he shrugged. “We have to stay within a mile of each other or…bad stuff will happen.”

Lydia scowled and turned away. “And I’m sure you’re thrilled about that.”

As she began to climb down back towards her window, she heard Betelgeuse bark, “Oh, and you probably think I’m enjoying this _so_ _much_ , don’t you?”

Lydia looked up to find him floating above her, scowling, and she made a rude gesture at him.

“Real mature.”

“Just leave me alone, Beetlebreath!”

He floated down, slipping into the space between her and the side of the house. “I’m not enjoying this. What makes you think I want to marry a pretentious brat like you, eh? You wouldn’t even give me a good time for it, I know that for sure.”

Before she could fall from reeling back in shock and disgust, Betelgeuse grabbed her unbroken wrist. “Hear me when I say this, Lydia Deetz,” he spat in her face, and Lydia flinched as flecks of moldy saliva landed on her cheeks and chin, “not everything is about you.”

With that, he shoved her back through her open window, and she landed on her chest on the carpet.

_Not everything is about you._

Biting her lip, Lydia rubbed her carpet-burned cheek.

_Not everything is about you._

Slowly she stood to her feet and walked to her vanity, staring at her raw cheek and her reddening eyes.

_Not everything is about you._

Barbara looked up when Betelgeuse entered the kitchen and sat down at the head of the table. Though she smiled at him in greeting, she didn’t say a word, watching the poltergeist sitting at the table. Her smile didn’t last. Deep within herself, she felt something tighten as she noticed the way he was sitting, slumped and slack like someone had dropped a mannequin in a striped suit carelessly down in the seat.

“Betelgeuse?”

He didn’t respond, staring blankly ahead at the red placemat in front of him.

“Betelgeuse?” Barbara hesitantly approached his side.

“Be—”

His hand suddenly whipped up, grabbing her cheeks and squishing her lips so she couldn’t speak. Gasping uselessly, Barbara flinched and stood still. The ghost wasn’t looking at her; he was still staring ahead at the table in front of him.

“No more,” he murmured.

Barbara cleared her throat as he lowered his hand, realizing what she almost did.

“What would happen if someone were to say your name three times now?” She asked, sitting down next to him at table. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a shadow shift in the hallway, but she shook her head and turned her attention back to Betelgeuse.

He shrugged bonelessly. “Probably somethin’ bad. I mean, I’ve been bound to this realm, so if someone tried to send me back to the Netherworld…” he grimaced and picked at the moss growing on his hands, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation.

Barbara nodded. “Right. Well, I’ll be more careful in the future, then.”

Betelgeuse’s pale gray eyes slowly lifted up towards her, and Barbara shivered. It always sent chills up her spine how emotionless his eyes were. However, his eyes didn’t stay on hers very long. 

“Thanks, Babbles.”

_This is it,_ Barbara thought. _This is your chance._

Reaching forward, she patted his hand and smiled at him before walking back to the sink to finish the dishes. If her heart was beating, it would be ringing in her ears, waiting for him to lash out at her and do something horrible to her.

And yet…nothing happened. Slowly she finished the dishes and looked back at the table and turned to see Betelgeuse still sitting there limply.

Glancing at Delia in the living room, Barbara approached him. “You know…since you’re going to be staying here for a year, you should have your own room, right?”

Betelgeuse looked up at her. “Should I?”

At first, Barbara’s instinct was to frown in response to his sarcasm at her offer until she noticed that Betelgeuse looked genuinely confused, and she nodded. “Yes. I’ll show you if you want.”

The ghost rose off his seat, floating behind her in midair still in a seated position. Smiling again, Barbara led him up the narrow stairway and down the hall to the door next to the master bedroom. “Here. This was the second guest bedroom when it was Adam and I’s—oh.”

The two ghosts stared at the gaudy, overly-decorated room. Disfigured papier-mache statues were lined up like soldiers against the walls, which were, themselves, covered in canvases that were wildly splattered with paint. Barbara glanced nervously at Betelgeuse as he stared at it all with wide eyes.

“U-Um…Delia may have found it first… I’m sorry.”

He shook his head and entered the room. “Nah.” He stomped his foot against the floor as if testing it out before sitting on the bed. The black carpeting and dark green walls he actually liked, which was surprising. He never really worried about what a room looked like before, so he couldn’t really understand why was Barbara so concerned.

“You don’t mind…the…um…art?” Barbara asked, struggling to come up with a word for the objects invading the bedroom.

He shook his head. “Nah.”

Again, Barbara wasn’t sure what to make of that response—or him in general. Before any of this happened, she would have assumed Betelgeuse would have destroyed the statues and paintings, or would make them come to life to attack, or something along those lines. But now he was sitting on the bed almost complacently.

Clearing her throat, Barbara backed out of the room. “Well…okay then… Goodnight.”

As she closed the door, she thought she heard him murmur something in response, but she chose to ignore it. She wasn’t sure if she could be able to handle having any more “friendly” conversation with Betelgeuse. After all, for the past ten years, she had done her best to forget about him. If on the rare occasion that she thought about him, she would think only with hatred. And now having a relatively normal conversation with him, as if he was just some other person in the house, a guest… Barbara shook her head. She didn’t know what to think.

Betelgeuse lied down on the floor of the room, the bed being too soft for him. He wasn’t used to such pleasantries as a soft bed, and he doubt he ever would be. Thus, he opted for the floor. Even that was softer than what he was used to, and the shag rug he lay on tickled his face. In a good way, though, almost like a strange, hairy grass. That, he appreciated.

Sitting up, he glanced over the strange statues surrounding him. While most people might have been disturbed by their strange, unnatural shape, it only reminded Betelgeuse of…well, it wasn’t his home, but where he liked to be, the Neitherworld. Not the Netherworld. The Neitherworld. There was a big difference, though most people didn’t really understand that. It was a lot simpler than they made it sound.

As Betelgeuse lounged on the shag carpet, he suddenly felt a sharp tingling in the bottoms of his feet. What was that? He sat up, peeling off his boots and rubbing his socked feet.

Adam suddenly looked up from the “How to Tune a Piano” book he was reading. “Do you smell that?”

Barbara smelled the air. As a ghost, she didn’t need to breathe, so her sense of smell a little lacking, but she instantly recognized the tang of smoke.

“Adam, get the fire extinguisher,” Barbara ordered as she rushed downstairs.

She found Lydia poking her head out of her bedroom, staring at the wisps of smoke wafting out from beneath the guest bedroom door and collecting in the ceiling of the hallway.

“Adam!” Barbara screamed, and her husband rushed downstairs holding the fire extinguisher.

She pushed against the door to no avail. It was locked. Clearing her throat, Barbara clenched her fists and glanced back at Adam and Lydia before diving through the door, using most of her power to phase through it. The room was filled with so much black smoke she could hardly see, but she managed to fumble for the doorknob and unlock it.

Immediately, the door burst open, allowing the built up smoke to billow into the hallway. Lydia coughed violently and fled to her bedroom while Adam entered, brandishing the fire extinguisher.

“Where is it, Barb? B-Barbara?” He looked up, noticing that Barbara had gone into that hollow, staring state once again.

As usual, he followed her gaze to Betelgeuse, who knelt in the middle of the room with a tall ring of white and blue flames around him. Quickly Adam extinguished the flames. Then again. And again.

“Barbara!” he shouted, putting out the reviving flames once again. “Do something!”

Suddenly, Barbara started out of her stupor and rushed over to the ghost. “Betelgeuse?”

The poltergeist seemed to be in a catatonic state. He had his arms wrapped around his sides, almost like he was hugging himself, his formerly jaundiced eyes were wide, empty, and pure white, and he was breathing—actually breathing—gasping out breaths like he was suffocating.

“Betelgeuse, tell me what’s wrong so I can—” the words got caught in Barbara’s throat as if resisting coming out “—so I can help you.”

It took him a moment to respond, to even register she was there. As Barbara watched, he rocked back and forth on his knees for a moment before turning his head up towards her.

“My name…” he said hoarsely.

“What?”

“Say it!”

“But wouldn’t that hurt you?”

“Say it!”

Foam dripped out of the corner of Betelgeuse’s mouth, and Barbara backed away fearfully. Nevertheless, she swallowed and whispered, “Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse.”

Immediately, the flames disappeared without even needing to be extinguished, and Betelgeuse collapsed into a pitiful trembling heap of dead flesh onto the floor. Instantly, Barbara was by his side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders to steady him and quell his shaking.

“Adam,” she said quietly.

Adam set aside the fire extinguisher and knelt beside her. “Is he okay?”

Barbara looked down at the pathetic poltergeist half lying in her lap and murmured, “I think he’ll be okay. But I need you to do me a favor.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she touched it with her free hand gently. “Find me the Deetz who tried to banish him,” she whispered, her voice shaking with shock and anger.

Adam watched her worriedly for a moment before patting her shoulder and standing. When he walked out into the hall, Charles was poking his head out of the bedroom much like Lydia had done before.

“Where did all the smoke come from?” he asked, distressed.

“Uh…Betelgeuse, I think. You didn’t happen to say his name three times, did you?”

Charles shook his head, his bedhead of blond hair falling into his eyes. “No. I’ve tried not to think about him since Lydia first told me he was here. I-I’d rather not thing about how the ghost who tried to marry my daughter is in my house…”

Adam nodded. Understandable. “What about Delia?”

“She’s been asleep this whole time. Sleeping pills will do that to you.”

After that short exchange, Charles disappeared back into his bedroom, and Adam sighed malcontentedly. They were Adam’s two main suspects, after all. That only left one other person, and although he didn’t want to, he walked to Lydia’s bedroom door and knocked.

“Lydia?”

There was no response.

“Lydia?” he called again, jiggling the door handle. Locked.

Sighing, Adam glanced back at the guest bedroom. If Barbara could do it, so could he. He phased through the door to find Lydia staring at her reflection at her vanity, her black hair half falling out of a bun. Her eyes were wide and slightly panicked, like a small animal.

“Lydia?”

Immediately, she screamed and toppled off her seat, and Adam rushed to help her. She fought him for a moment before seemingly realizing who he was and relaxing.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked the trembling young woman.

“I-I thought you were…someone else,” Lydia responded, sitting up. She raked her fingers through her hair, pulling the last of it out of the bun. “I thought you were him.”

Adam knew who she meant at once, and her frightened expression lowered his hopes. This didn’t look good.

“Lydia…” Adam placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You trust me, right?”

Her eyes flickering with fear, Lydia looked up at him and only nodded. Adam didn’t exactly feel reassured.

“Alright. And you wouldn’t lie to me about anything important?”

She hesitated for a moment, but eventually, she nodded her head again.

“Did you try to banish Betelgeuse?”

And silence fell, their two sets of brown eyes staring into each other. As he studied her thought-filled eyes, Adam noticed the edges were beginning to turn red.

“I…I…” she croaked, struggling to continue. Adam rested his hand on hers, and she took a hitching breath. “I did. I tried to send him away. But you have to understand! I can’t do this anymore!”

“Lydia, he’s been here for barely two days,” Adam reasoned.

“I know, and I’m sick of it—of him! I-If you just knew what it’s like to be forced to be with him. I wish he would just disappear like he did before!”

“Lydia!” Adam said, startling Lydia out of her rant. She never heard Adam be stern with her. Usually that was Barbara’s job. “You can’t just say that about someone. Even about…someone like Betelgeuse.”

Lydia stood and began to pace. “No, no, you can’t understand! I can’t do this!”

“Just…give it some time, Lydia.” Adam stopped her pacing by placing his hands on her shoulders.

Lydia looked up at him with tearful brown eyes and hugged him, sniffling into his chest, and he sighed, hugging her tightly. “Everything will be okay. Okay?” he smiled and patted her shoulder. “I’m going to check in with Barbara now.”

“Okay…” Lydia scrubbed her nose and sat on her bed. Her small smile faded when Adam left the room, and she wrapped her arms around her knees. “Everything isn’t going to be okay, Adam. Nothing is okay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heidy-ho everyone! Thanks so much for reading my fic! If you have any thoughts on it, please leave me a comment below. I love nothing more than hearing from you guys <3.
> 
> Here's the summary of what happened after the last phrase in the Beginning Notes: Someone says Betelgeuse's name three times to banish him, but instead of sending him away, it just makes him catch on fire and his eyes blaze white (sound familiar?). Barbara and Adam rush to put out the fire, and he manages to get Barbara to say his name three more times. This puts out the fire for good. Afterwards, Barbara stays by Betelgeuse, who is now unconscious, and sends Adam to find who tried to banish Betelgeuse. Adam finds out it was Lydia, who was desperate to make him leave. Adam tries to reassure her that everything will be alright to little avail before leaving to go check up on Barbara. Lydia feels just as hopeless as before.


	6. Coming Clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Muahahaha! Today's the day Betelgeuse takes his obligatory shower that's in many of the other works that I've seen. I suppose that means "coming clean" has a double meaning, then... Also, Lydia finally gets to one-up the Ghost with the Most.

When Adam returned to the guest bedroom, he found Barbara sitting in a chair by the bed where Betelgeuse was lying, stiff as a board. He seemed to be asleep, and Barbara had her nose buried in _the Handbook for the Recently Deceased_ , flipping quickly through the pages.

Adam smiled and leaned over the back of her chair. “Looking for something?”

Barbara nodded a little. “I just… I want to know why he was…” She looked up at him, “He was breathing, Adam. I want to know why.”

“Hmm…” Adam took the book and thumbed through chapters. “They really need a table of contents for this thing.” He was rewarded with a chuckle from Barbara, and he handed the book back. “There. Signs of life in ghosts.”

Her eyes drifted over the page, soaking in the information. “ _‘If a ghost is beginning to show signs of life, do not be alarmed or hopeful. They are not coming back to life. Habits such as breathing, eating and drinking out of hunger and thirst rather than desire, and sleeping out of tiredness are actually signs of deep distress.’_ ” She lowered the book. “Oh, Adam…He must have been so scared…”

Adam rested a hand on her shoulder. “Barb…I don’t think…” he glanced up at the sleeping poltergeist. “I don’t think he feels fear. I don’t think he feels anything.”

Barbara frowned and stood up. “How could you say something like that? We’re ghosts and we have feelings!”

“Well, sure, but I think it’s different. _He’s_ different.” 

Barbara opened her mouth to argue but couldn’t get the words out. Glancing at Betelgeuse, she sighed and sat back down.

“Even if he can’t feel anything, he’s still hurt, and since no one else is going to take care of him, I will. It’s not like people can take care of themselves all the time. Even Betelgeuse.”

Adam stood by her side helplessly; he didn’t know what to say. There was nothing he could do to dissuade her, her knew that for sure, so he only kissed the top of her head and left the room. Barbara scooted her chair closer to the bed.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that Barbara felt a presence standing in the doorway. However, she didn’t turn from the ghost’s side, resting her hand on his scalded arm to see if it would wake him.

“You can come in, Adam.”

Hearing no response, Barbara looked up, her eyes widening when she saw Lydia standing in the doorway. Her eyes were red from crying, and she looked paler than usual. Barbara waved her into the room and took Lydia’s unbroken hand as she approached the bedside.

“He hasn’t woken up yet?” Lydia murmured, staring with sleepless eyes at the poltergeist on the bed.

“No.” Barbara shook her head dolefully. “And he hasn’t shown any signs of waking up anytime soon.”

After their small exchange, Lydia fell into guilty silence. Barbara glanced at her but said nothing, which only made Lydia feel worse. The way Barbara was beginning to care for Betelgeuse, as she did for almost everyone she met, was painfully obvious, and Lydia couldn’t bear to tell her that she was the one who caused him all this pain, that she was the one who caused him to go into a coma, that she was the one who tried to get rid of him.

She almost felt sorry for him, especially now that she was seeing him caked in ashes and sweat. Fidgeting uncomfortably, she tried not to think about how sad and deflated he looked.

“Also, Delia wants help in the kitchen…if you want to help…” Lydia murmured.

Barbara looked up and sighed as she rubbed her forehead wearily; the headache that had formed when the fire started had yet to go away. “I guess so. Would you mind staying with him while I’m gone?”

Lydia’s heart fluttered nervously, and she glanced at Betelgeuse. He was asleep. Everything would be fine. He wasn’t going to hurt her.

“Sure.” Lydia’s voice was small, her response sounding cut off.

Barbara smiled at her but kept an eye on Lydia as she headed for the door. The girl stood as still as the statues in the room for a moment before sitting down in the now unoccupied chair. This helped the voice whispering in Barbara’s head that she was making a mistake by leaving.

“You look really dumb and weak laying in the bed like that, letting Barbara fawn over you like some sort of delusional mother hen,” Lydia said to the unconscious ghost. “You’re terrible, Betelgeuse. You’re a suck-up to her and you know it. We both know it. So just tell her. Tell her that your just using her. You don’t actually want help, you’re just trying to…to…” she trailed off, unsure on how to end her sentence. “You’re trying to do something terrible. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m going to stop it before you hurt anyone else I care about. Do you hear me?” She glared needles at him as he slept on. “Wake up, Betelgeuse. Wake up!”

He startled awake, and Lydia cried out in surprise, scrambling back. She hadn’t actually expected him to respond, to wake up. Now she faced him. Now he was awake and staring at her with wide, gray eyes.

“Betelgeuse…” Lydia gasped, staring back.

“You really love to wear out my name, don’t ya?” Betelgeuse’s swollen purple lips crinkled into some semblance of a smile, and Lydia inhaled sharply.

“You…You know what I did?” Lydia whispered, her heart battering against her ribcage.

“Sure.” He leaned back against the headboard. “After all, I’d been waiting for you to say it for the past ten years. I know your voice, babes.”

Lydia cleared her throat. _Waiting? For ten years?_

“Why?”

“Why what?” his head snapped around, making a harsh crunching sound.

“Why were you… Why on earth did you think I’d ever call you back after what you almost did to me?” To Betelgeuse’s dismay, Lydia’s brown eyes, which, for a moment, had turned soft, were back to their diamond-edge hardness.

He rolled his shoulders and tugged at the collar of his now smoke-stained gray button-up shirt, and Lydia glanced away as he picked at the charred skin that stubbornly stuck to his chest.

“Betelgeuse.” She scowled at him.

His hand darted forward, slamming over her mouth. “Will you stop saying that?!” he snarled, his eyes flashing with rage.

Writhing against his grip, Lydia gagged. His hand smelled like ashes, mold, and, most potently, death, but she found she couldn’t get away despite tearing at his wrist with her working hand. Finally, she yanked her head away, despite being lightly scratched on the cheek by one of his long, grimy nails.

“Why should I?” she challenged, getting a crazed look in her dark eyes. “I could just send you away and never have to deal with you again! Everything will go back to normal!”

“Nothing’s going back to normal whether you like it or not.”

“Why not?!”

Without warning, Betelgeuse stood up, allowing her to see just how badly burnt the rest of his suit was. “Because _you’re_ not normal, Lydia Deetz! So everything that’s not normal is naturally attracted to you! You’re a freakin’ magnet for the supernatural!”

Lydia paled. She stammered. She tried to argue. At the end of it, she sat down silently in the chair with Betelgeuse standing over her, his chest heaving with incorporeal breaths. After several moments of the two staring into each other’s eyes, Betelgeuse sunk back down onto the bed, though he still faced her.

“Sheesh. Lookit you. You made me lose my temper.”

“I thought you losing your temper would be more explosive and magical than just screaming in my face,” Lydia murmured shortly.

“I already told you—” with a groan, he hoisted his legs up onto the bed “—I don’t do two shows a night anymore. I won’t. I won’t do it.”

He pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his suit jacket, and Lydia opened her mouth to protest until she realized it was a little late to save the ceilings from becoming smoke-stained. Frowning, she crossed her arms and looked away.

“I expected more of a fight from you, that’s all. I mean, you are the Ghost with the Most. Or, you claim to be, at least.”

“If you’re trying to goad me into a fight,” Betelgeuse replied, casually blowing a smoke ring, “s’not gonna work.”

Lydia groaned in frustration. “Why can’t you just be a malicious jerk like before?!”

As if in defiance, Betelgeuse wormed deeper into the pillows and covers, a dog’s squeaky-toy sound coming from nowhere as he did so. Lydia looked around in confusion before crossing her arms as he began to speak again.

“I resent that. After all, I wasn’t _that_ much of a multireligious whatever-you-said.”

“You tried to marry a fourteen year old girl,” she reminded him.

Betelgeuse choked and hacked out a cloud of smoke as well as a tangled up spiderweb, resembling a cat throwing up a hairball.

“ _Minutiae_ , babes.”

A frown tugged at the corner of Lydia’s mouth. “Are you using fancy contract words to try to confuse me?” 

“Extraneous technicalities.” He waggled his cigarette at her, the burning end coming dangerously close to her hair. “The fact you were fourteen wasn’t really that big a deal to me. You were—and still are, I’m guessing—a virgin, though maybe a _little_ underage.”

“A little?”

“A little!” He tugged at the lapels of his suit to emphasize his point, but they just fell to pieces.

“Looks like you’re going to need new clothes,” Lydia murmured. “That suit’s going to fall apart any minute.”

“Like that’s a problem?”

A smirk played on his lips, and Lydia immediately shoved his head so it turned towards the wall.

“Yes!” Lydia stood and opened the dresser only to find it empty. “Great. What size are you?”

The poltergeist shrugged unhelpfully. “They didn’t really have ‘sizes’ when I was alive, babes.”

“So you don’t know?”

He grunted and took another drag of his cigarette, and Lydia rolled her eyes. Of course he wouldn’t admit if he didn’t know something. Storming over to the bed, Lydia grabbed his arm, and he swore loudly in retaliation.

“Get up,” she ordered as he resisted. “Now!”

With a groan, he swayed up to his feet, sitting down in midair, and Lydia grabbed the back of his shirt, tugging it back and making him squawk. Sure enough, she was unable to find any kind of size tag. Stepping away, Lydia watched with a raised eyebrow as Betelgeuse grumbled to himself and tugged at his collar so it loosened around his neck where she had pulled it tight.

If she couldn’t find the specific size, she’d have to guesstimate, so she began to gingerly tug at his sleeves and the shoulders of his suit, heedful of the parts that were so burned they were falling apart into ash or even just sections that seemed to be completely rotted through. Unlike most men she knew, including her six-digit making father, Betelgeuse’s suit fit him perfectly. Lydia bit back her surprise as to not please him.

Giving the shoulders of his suit a brushoff, Lydia nodded at him. “I think my dad’s clothes should fit you. They might be a little big, but…”

Betelgeuse only grunted. No ‘thank you’, not even a snide comment about how she was touching his clothes, which she expected. Nevertheless, Lydia decided to just ignore him, and she started towards the door.

“Stay here. I’ll be back, hopefully with clothes.”

As she closed the door behind her, she heard another noncommittal grunt from the ghost and rolled her eyes. Hurrying downstairs, she found Charles sitting at the table watching as Delia, Barbara, and Adam prepared dinner. The stress of keeping track of everything while cooking got to his nerves, so he was often excused from making dinner.

“Hey, Dad,” Lydia called as she tripped down the last two stairs.

Charles started and looked up. “O-Oh! There you are, pumpkin. I was just about to come up there to look for you. Dinner’s just about ready.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” Lydia smiled, sitting down next to him at the table. “Um…I was wondering something. I need something.”

She glanced up at him and picked a little at her cast, and Charles looked at her in surprise, not used to seeing his daughter nervous. Most of the time, it was pretty clear Lydia hadn’t inherited any of his shaky nerves. However, now she looked quite a bit like him: curled in on herself, fidgeting, and biting her lip.

“Well, sure. What is it?”

“I…I need…” she glanced up at Barbara and Adam. “I need to borrow some clothes. For Betelgeuse. His suit, um…didn’t really survive the fire. It’s falling apart.”

Adam turned in surprise. How was it that the girl who just tried to quite literally tear Betelgeuse apart at the seams was now doing him a favor? Charles also stared. Why was his daughter doing something nice for the horrible man who she was being forced to marry?

Despite his apprehensions, Charles nodded, and Lydia breathed a sigh of relief. Her father's old college clothes were really her only hope at getting Betelgeuse clothes that would actually fit. While Adam was another option, Charles was more Betelgeuse’s build, though perhaps a little heavier-set. Unfortunately, she couldn't give him any clothes past Charles's college years when he hit a late growths spurt that shot him up to six feet four inches.

“Uh…sure, pumpkin. I’m sure I have some clothes her can borrow.” Charles tapped his chin and then smiled nervously. “On second thought, I might not want them back after he wears them. He can just have them.”

Lydia tried not to laugh as she kissed his cheek and stood. “Thanks. I’ll be right back for dinner.”

With that, she marched back up the stairs and entered her parents’ room. She had always envied their giant walk-in closet, but now as no time to think of such things. After a moment or two of digging, Lydia finally found some clothes that she never saw Charles wear. There were a few company retreat T-shirts that had been worn only once and some university sweatpants and sweatshirts that Charles had always talked about donating.

Tucking her findings under her arm, Lydia headed back towards the guest bedroom where Betelgeuse was still lounging in bed. She stood over him, one hand on her hip, and he opened a single eye to look at her.

“Here. This is what I found.” She held out the clothes to him.

Sitting up, the ghost reached to take the clothes from her, but she yanked them back with a smile. “Ah-ah-ah. My father made a very good point when I asked him for clothes.”

Betelgeuse gave her a skeptical look. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

Lydia sat down in the chair. “Why should I give you these nice clean clothes when you’re covered in ashes and mold, hmm?”

If it was even possible, Betelgeuse’s moon-pale skin became even paler. “You…you don’t mean…”

“Oh, yes…” she leaned forward in her chair, relishing what she felt like was victory over him. “If you want these clothes, you’re taking a _shower_.”

“No! No way!”

Lydia shrugged nonchalantly, leaned back in her chair, and tucked Charles’s clothes back under her arm. A devious pout sat on her pretty red lips, making Betelgeuse boil and squirm like a worm caught in the sun. “I suppose you’ll just have to stay in that disintegrating suit, then.”

With almost painstaking slowness, Lydia rose from her chair and began to walk towards the door. Just as she was reaching for the doorknob, she heard the words she knew were coming.

“Fine! Fine!”

Lydia spun around, a huge grin replacing her previously sullen look, and looked at the scowling poltergeist on the bed. He crossed his arms and wrinkled his nose. “Don’t lookit me like that.”

Instead of just looking, Lydia began to laugh and tossed the clothes to him. “Alright, Mr. Geuse, go on. The bathroom is the door between my room and my parents’ room.”

With a similar slowness to Lydia’s, Betelgeuse stood up with the clothes in his arms, shuffling down the hall to the indicated door. The woman and poltergeist stared at each other from across the hall before he finally disappeared into the bathroom. Lydia continued watching until the light flicked on. Satisfied, she headed back downstairs where her family was waiting at the table.

“Sorry I took so long,” she murmured, sitting down at the table next to Delia. Noticing the chair sitting on the opposite head of the table from her father, she looked back at Charles. “Got a friend coming over, Dad?”

Charles blinked in surprise as if he just noticed the chair, and shook his head, and Barbara, who was sitting across the table from Lydia, placed her hand on top of hers. “I put that there. It’s for Betelgeuse.” She smiled her sweetest, most convincing smile, as if pleading with the others not to argue.

Lydia sat silently in surprise for a moment before shaking her head. “Oh, um…he might not be eating dinner with us tonight.”

“Why not?” Barbara frowned, worried.

“Well—”

The sound of the shower turning on cut her off, and she smiled nervously. “Me and Betelgeuse may have struck a bit of a deal. I gave him the clothes if he promised to take a shower.” She sighed. “I just didn’t want to live with that smell anymore.”

Everyone gaped at the her, and she shrunk in on herself and blushed. There was a long moment of silence and staring until finally Adam broke it:

“Well, I’ll be an monkey’s uncle.” He rested his chin in his hand. “Betelgeuse actually kept his side of the deal.”

Barbara looked down at her hands. “I-I guess we shouldn’t be so surprised. He did keep his word every time he made a deal last time he was here.”

Lydia picked at the fish on her plate, trying to not admit that Barbara was right. Betelgeuse was a lot of bad things, but a backstabber was not one of them. With all his faults, sins, and rudeness, his loyalty was something Lydia admired…and perhaps schemed to take advantage of. After all, he took advantage of her innocence and righteous desire to save Adam and Barbara, so why shouldn’t she return the favor? She’d just have to think of a way it might help her out of her predicament of choosing between marriage or sandworms. For now, however, she could experiment with little things like asking him to shower in return for new clothes. Whatever the deal was, he had to get something out of it, and if Lydia could make her side of it as insignificant to her as possible…

“Lydia,” Delia said, breaking Lydia’s train of thought, “you haven’t touched your food. Are you feeling alright?”

Lydia smiled a little. While Betelgeuse staying around was a pain, the situation definitely made her family pay a little more attention to her, which was nice.

“No, no, I’m fine. I…um…” she looked down at her plate. “I was just lost in thought I guess.”

Delia looked worriedly over at Charles but nodded, continuing her meal.

Once dinner was over, Barbara peeked into the kitchen to see Lydia helping Delia with the dishes before rushing upstairs. The bathroom light was still on, though the shower was not. Halting before the door, Barbara gazed at it for a long time until, finally, she knocked.

From inside the bathroom, she heard a quiet curse and a clatter, and the door was wrenched open. Although Barbara expected to be face-to-face with the newly-washed poltergeist, she just felt an icy sensation through her midsection. She turned and saw Betelgeuse heading towards his room, his charred black and white suit tucked under his arm.

“Uh—Betelgeuse…” she trailed off as he slowly stopped.

He stood in the doorway of his bedroom, and Barbara saw his shoulders rise and fall just once before he turned around to face her. Paling, Barbara stepped back slightly.

_He looks…so…normal._

The man standing before her would have been practically unrecognizable if it weren’t for the dark circles lacing his eyes and his deathly pale skin, which now resembled the moon even more than it already did and looked almost pearlescent in the light. With the mold and dirt now scrubbed off, Barbara could see the gray age spots, freckles, and scars that looked almost exactly like the craters of the moon. His arms were hidden by Charles’s sweatshirt, but the mold around his hand and face was now gone, which made the breathless purple hue of his lips more—if not obnoxiously—evident, like he was wearing purple lipstick that was half-heartedly scrubbed off. His pale, bleach blond hair was no longer matted with moss and dirt and sticking out in every direction but slicked back and clinging to his scalp with wetness.

Barbara stood staring for a good five minutes; her mouth slowly opened and closed like a fish out of water. After a moment, she heard a rumbling chuckle and she looked up to see Betelgeuse shaking his head. “Need somethin’?”

“Oh, um…dinner’s ready. Or…it was.”

The poltergeist nodded slowly. “So?”

“So what?” Barbara frowned a little.

“You’re telling me this for what?” Betelgeuse expanded, resting his back on the corner of the doorframe and rubbing back and forth like a bear would do to a tree.

“So you can eat?”

“I don’t need to.”

Barbara smiled a little. “So?”

Now that his own question had been turned against him, it was Betelgeuse’s turn to look taken aback. He glanced down at the suit in his hands and tossed it into the room. “Uh…yeah, sure, whatever.”

As she lead him downstairs, Barbara bit her lip to hold down a laugh. The way Betelgeuse had agreed to go was probably the most grumpy teenage-boy response she could think of, though he didn’t know it.

She lead the slightly-less-dead-looking ghost floating behind her into the dining room where she had set aside a plate for him. He sat down to eat, and Barbara proceeded into the kitchen so he didn’t feel like she was watching him. Lydia was sitting on the counter with a book, and Barbara smiled at the sight of her.

Feeling the sensation of the temperature dropping, the Lydia looked up. “Is he out?”

Barbara nodded and began to put away leftover food.

Lydia tried to fight a smile. “And he doesn’t smell?”

Barbara chuckled a little as she managed to squeeze the fish container onto the top rack of the fridge. “Go see for yourself. He’s in the dining room.”

Raising an eyebrow, Lydia slipped off the counter and peeked into the dining room, though she slunk back almost as soon as she did, her eyes wide. A quiet “oh…” escaped her lips, and Barbara chuckled again.

“Well?”

Lydia sighed. “What do you mean ‘well’?”

“Thoughts?”

Lydia frowned and rubbed her arms. “Just because I don’t gag at the sight of him anymore doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about marrying him. He’s still… _him_ , even if he’s lost a few layers of grime.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Barbara said, closing the fridge. “I only hope he’ll keep up this new showering routine.”

At this, Lydia laughed, almost a little deviously. It was enough to make Barbara look up in surprise. “I think I have a few bribing options to help with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the latest chapter of Call My Name! The idea of Betelgeuse's skin looking pearlescent when clean came from someone else's story, but I can't remember what it was called. Either way, kudos to them for that wonderful idea! Thanks so much for reading, and please leave me a comment telling me what you thought.


	7. BJ's Day Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I am so disappointed that I wasn't able to post on Halloween yesterday, but because of Hurricane Zeta, we had no power, so I wasn't able to post. But we're back now, and I'm thinking about continuing to post on Sundays from now on since so many people update on Saturday. Either way, here's Chapter 7, hope you enjoy!

Needless to say, Charles nearly leapt out of his skin when he walked downstairs one morning about a month after what he and Delia referred to as “The Juicining”. His daughter was bent over a map with a few pens in her hand. Normally, Lydia was never up before nine because of her late-night habits, and she almost never used a map unless absolutely necessary.

“O-Oh. You’re up early,” Charles said, accidentally making Lydia jump as well.

When she realized it was just her father, Lydia let out a sigh of relief and turned her map back face up. “Good morning to you, too,” she murmured with a smirk.

After getting his morning cup of coffee, Charles leaned over the back of her chair as Lydia continued her work. She had drawn a star over the house in blue pen, a line coming off of the star, which turned into a circle carving through about half of Winter River, in red pen, and a swerving line that traced the roads in black pen.

“Should I ask why you’re defacing a map?” Charles asked, sitting down opposite her and taking a sip of his coffee.

"Betelgeuse said that we can’t be more than a mile apart because of the curse that binds him here—to me, specifically. So I need to see what parts of town are off-limits now.” She sighed, resting her cheek in her hand. “Unfortunately it cuts off a lot of my favorite places to go. The movie theater, the pool…” she sighed again, this time even more wistfully, “the graveyard.”

Charles cleared his throat, glancing at the map. “Why don’t you just bring him along?”

Lydia dropped her pens in surprise before glaring a little bit at him for even suggesting it. “Are you crazy? Even if he promised to behave, I wouldn’t be caught dead—” she cut off and glanced down at the map where the graveyard was circled in red pen. “I mean…he could always say in the car…” she murmured.

“I just think you shouldn’t limit yourself because of him. B-But that’s just my opinion. Still, it would be nice to, uh…get him out of the house and not have to worry about him being here. And since he can’t leave you…”

Lydia chuckled. If she wasn’t already considering dragging Betelgeuse out of the house, she definitely would do so now for her father’s sake.

“I think we might go on a little road trip today.”

Standing up, Lydia rolled up her map and put it away before heading upstairs. She paused for a moment outside Betelgeuse’s door. Was this a bad idea? Probably.

“Betelgeuse? Are you…” she trailed off. Do ghosts sleep, really? She saw him unconscious before, but that might not have been the same thing. Nevertheless, she continued, “Are you awake in there?”

The door creaked open slightly on its own, and Lydia peeked in to see the poltergeist lying sideways on the bed, his legs resting parallel against the wall and his head hanging off the edge of the mattress. Apparently, he hadn’t noticed her or heard her, since his eyes were still closed.

Despite herself, Lydia tried to hold back a laugh. “Well, you look…um…comfortable.”

His gray eyes opened immediately and shifted to look at her. “M’not, actually,” he remarked, “M’all bones and edges.”

Pushing his hands against the side of the mattress, Betelgeuse preformed a backwards somersault and sat back in midair. He just looked at her with an expression like she was doing something minorly annoying, like chewing gum loudly or clicking a pen over and over.

Lydia stared back, not really knowing what to say. Today was the one-month anniversary of him barging into the Deetz-Maitland house once again, and he had been strangely quiet. No magical pranks. No scheming or harming anyone. Now looking into his eyes, Lydia could see a bored weariness, the same look she often recognized in the mirror; the look of someone so bored of their current situation that they had no motivation to do anything at all.

“So…um…I was thinking about going out today…” Lydia murmured.

“Uh-huh.”

The tone he used as disinterested as her dad’s when she tried to talk to him while he was reading the morning paper. Instead of looking at her, he floated over to the mirror hanging on the wall and picked at the corner of his mouth, which had been slowly growing back the moss along with his hands, neck, and sides of his face. Unfortunately, he wasn’t too keen on taking _repeated_ showers. Especially after he looked in a mirror and saw how human and, even worse, how normal he looked.

“I want to stop by a few places to take pictures for my album, but they’re more than a mile away.”

At this, he turned to look at her, interest sparking in his deadpan eyes, and a smile played at the corners of Lydia’s mouth. Now he was listening.

“Of course, with the curse and all, that wouldn’t be possible…” she tapped her chin. “Unless…”

“Unless?” The ghost turned to face her full-on.

“Unless you came with me.”

The peach fuzz on Lydia’s arms and neck stood up as a giant, hideous grin spread across Betelgeuse’s features, displaying a grimy rack of probably too many teeth for one mouth.

“Let’s go! Let’s go right now!”

Before Lydia knew it, both his hands were wrapped around her upper arm, and he was dragging her out of his room, and all Lydia could do was stare at him. All at once, that tired, bored look in his eyes was gone, all because he was getting a chance to go out on the town. She tried not to laugh. He was like a dog that hadn’t been taken out for a walk in a week. A big, dead, disgusting dog.

“Whoa, slow down,” Lydia replied, tugging back hard enough to make him stop and let go. “Before we go, we have to lay down some ground rules.”

A scratchy whine escaped the ghost’s throat. “Oh, come on! I hate rules.” 

Lydia crossed her arms. “First off, if I’m going to take you with me, you have to _stay_ with me. No running off to scare people or cause havoc.”

Betelgeuse grumbled under his breath and scuffed boots on the ground, making Lydia suddenly aware he was back in his striped suit, which, somehow, was back to the way it was before the fire: pressed neatly with barely any wrinkles and only a few greenish stains of moss.

“Speaking of causing havoc,” Lydia continued, “rule number two is that you can’t destroy, kill, or even slightly damage _anything,_ living, dead, or inanimate.”

This rule didn’t seem to weigh easier on Betelgeuse’s mind either, and he held up two fingers. “Okay? Anything else?”

Lydia thought for a moment before nodding. “Also, don’t be a passenger-seat driver. I choose the venue, and I don’t want any arguments or whining about it.”

A third finger flicked up on his hand, and he studied them intently before nodding. “Kay. I think I can do that.”

Smiling, Lydia nodded back and hurried to her room to get dressed. Her hand hesitated over her bottom drawer. The graveyard was right near the pool…but she wasn’t sure if she wanted Betelgeuse to see her in a swimsuit. Finally, she decided that he would just stay in the car and grabbed her swimsuit, putting it on before slipping on her black sundress and her matching black sunhat, the same hat she had when she moved into the house and met the ghosts.

When she opened the door, she found Betelgeuse exactly where she left him.

“So, what’s a passenger-side driver?” he asked as he followed her down the stairs.

Grabbing the map, Lydia stuffed it in her purse and pulled out her keys in the same motion. “You…do know what a car is, right?”

He floated next to her and scratched his head. “Uh…it’s like a carriage but without the horses, right?”

Lydia snorted through her nose, covering her smile with her hand. “How do you know what a K-mart is, but you don’t know what a car is? Come on.”

Without second thought, Lydia headed out to her boxy silver Volkswagen GTI, though she paused when she saw Betelgeuse hovering by the door with only the tips of his boots hanging over the doorway into the outside world. Slowly he stuck out one leg and placed it on the ground, his eyes widening as he did so, and he stepped out. Lydia sat down on the hood of her car as he dared to let go of the side of the doorframe, fully in the outside world. A triumphant cackle rose up in his throat.

“No sandworms!”

Lydia stared at his lit up face with surprise. Never in her life did she see someone look so relieved and happy, and she quickly turned her head away. “Yay. Now get in.”

After his little victory of leaving the house, Betelgeuse seemed to adjust well to getting into a car, though he looked a little wary after Lydia turned on the engine and the car rumbled to life. As she turned out onto the long, swerving driveway towards town, he remarked, “Silver doesn’t seem like a very ‘you’ color.”

“Sure, but they didn’t have any in black. You get what you get.” She shrugged.

Following this little exchange, Betelgeuse fell quiet and watched the buildings pass by with a hand pressed up against the glass of the passenger-side window. Every so often at red lights, the driver in the car next to them would glance over, notice Betelgeuse, and quickly look away, wide-eyed. Apparently, Betelgeuse got a kick out of this.

“Didja see the look on that guy’s face!” he cackled as his foot stomped against the floorboard with evil glee. “What’s the matter, mister? Didja see a ghost!”

He blew a raspberry at the man with his tongue out, and Lydia merely rolled her eyes.

“Who knew a hundred year old poltergeist could be so childish?” she murmured.

“ _Seven_ hundred years old…almost,” Betelgeuse corrected, his face screwing up in an expression Lydia couldn’t describe even if she tried. However, he didn’t try to argue with her accusation of his childishness.

Soon enough, they reached the graveyard, and Betelgeuse stood up, his head and shoulders phasing through the roof of the car. “A graveyard? Aw, babes, you know me so well.”

Scowling, Lydia reached up and dragged Betelgeuse back down by the end of his suit jacket. “Don’t do that, idiot! People can see you, remember?”

Grumbling, Betelgeuse allowed himself to be yanked back into his seat. “Alright, alright, sheesh.”

Lydia grabbed her camera from the backseat and crawled out of the driver’s seat. As her eyes scanned the graveyard for anything photo worthy, she glanced at Betelgeuse as he followed her, clumsily stumbling out of the car. She decided to just ignore him and walked between the graves, running her hand over the smooth stones and occasionally kneeling to clean dead leaves or sticks that covered the inscriptions.

As she snapped a picture of a bagworm hanging from a tree, she heard Betelgeuse call from behind her. “Hey! Look what I found!”

Betelgeuse was sitting on a grave, and Lydia frowned at him.

“That’s disrespectful of the dead,” she murmured as she approached.

“I _am_ the dead.”

Lydia rolled her eyes yet again. “What did you find, anyway?”

Grinning, Betelgeuse hopped up so he was crouching and Lydia could see the name on the grave. “I found Waldo!”

For what felt like the third or fourth time that day, Lydia fought back a smile. “Alright, I got to say, that’s pretty neat.”

She raised her camera to take a picture, and Betelgeuse immediately leapt out of frame. Again, Lydia smiled to herself. “What’s the matter? Is the poltergeist camera shy?”

Over her shoulder, she heard a grunt. “I don’t do pictures.”

“Oh really?”

Spinning on her heel, she snapped a picture of what she hoped what Betelgeuse. He reeled back, ending up lying on his back in midair.

“Hey!” He scowled, crossing his arms. “I’m not a fan of the paparazzi. Trust me, I get enough of that regularly.”

“If you don’t stop making me roll my eyes, they’re going to roll out of my head.” Shaking her head, Lydia marched over to some other graves.

“Lookit that, it’s Adam and Babs!” Betelgeuse exclaimed, still following her for some reason.

Glancing over at two graves, Lydia inhaled sharply when she saw the yellow and blue spray paint scrawled over the Maitlands’ graves.

“That’s terrible!” She knelt by the graves, trying in vain to scrub the paint off with the hem of her dress. “I can’t believe some jerkwad would just do something like that to someone’s grave!”

Betelgeuse appeared sitting on top of Barbara’s grave, his boots resting on Adam’s. “People are stupid and mean, babes. That’s all there is to it.”

Lydia scowled and tried to ignore how hot her cheeks and eyes felt. “That’s no excuse to deface someone’s grave!” Growling, she scrubbed harder until she scraped her knuckles against the stone, and they began to bleed.

Betelgeuse shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter to me. In a few hundred years, these stones will be gone, and their bodies and caskets will be part of the dirt with the worms and other creepy crawlies.”

“But it’s still nice to honor them by not letting their graves be covered in graffiti.” 

Glancing down, he noticed the blood on Lydia’s knuckles and torn dress, sighed, and flicked his hand at the graves. Immediately, the graffiti disappeared, along with any signs of moss or discoloration from rain.

Lydia sighed in relief when she saw the graves back to their prime condition and looked up curiously at the ghost sitting above her on the graves.

“I didn’t do that because I’m nice.”

“Of course not.”

“I did it because I’m gonna get something out of it. Eventually.”

“Exactly.” Lydia stood and looped her camera back around her neck as he ghost slowly floated down from his seat.

“Can we just get outta here or whatever? I’m bored again.”

“What did I say about passenger-seat driving?” Lydia reminded him. Nevertheless, she headed back towards her car, having gotten her fill of graveyard pictures.

“Now what?” Betelgeuse leaned back in the passenger’s seat and kicked his feet onto the dashboard. “Don’t tell me we’re going home already.”

Swallowing nervously, Lydia glanced over at the poltergeist as she pulled out of the graveyard’s grassy parking lot. Even when Betelgeuse looked at her expectantly for an answer, she didn’t reply or even look at him until she was parked again in front of the pool, which was abandoned due to the overcast weather. She folded her hands best she could with her cast on and looked over at him.

Betelgeuse just stared ahead at the chlorine blue waters of the pool, his face blank. “What?” his voice was just as monotone as his face.

Lydia cleared her throat and grabbed her sunglasses as she opened the door. “I’m going swimming since it’s not crowded. You can wait in the car.”

She closed the door, walked over to the empty pool, and into the women’s bathroom, reemerging in her two-piece swimsuit. When she noticed Betelgeuse lounging in one of the white, plastic lawn chairs beneath a large red umbrella, she screamed and backed off.

“I thought I told you to stay in the car!”

“Tch,” he rolled his eyes. “Like I was gonna let you ditch me? Besides, it was hot in there.”

Lydia stomped her sandaled foot. “Ugh, you’re the worst.”

“Hey, ghosts have to sunbathe, too, yanno.” He scooted back further underneath the shade of the umbrella. “Not this ghost, though. I prefer my pasty skin. Contrasts nice with my dark circles, doesn’t it?”

It was at this moment Lydia realized Betelgeuse was no longer wearing his striped suit but an authentic 1920’s swim suit covering his whole body, though it still bore his signature black and white stripes. Lydia gasped something between a shriek and a laugh and turned away.

“You look ridiculous!”

“You look ridiculous.”

Lydia felt her sunglasses and hat leave her head, and she turned to see Betelgeuse wearing them. Even with the sunglasses on, he dipped the brim of the sunhat down over his eyes as he stretched out on the lawn chair.

“Can I have those back?” Lydia asked impatiently, crossing her arms.

“Girl, no, I’m fabulous. I’m gonna need to invest in a pair of these before I move to Hawaii someday. Besides, why would you need them if you’re goin’ swimmin’?”

Lydia sighed. “And you aren’t?”

“Ha!” Betelgeuse only pushed the hat down further over his face. “You couldn’t get me in the water even if you paid me.”

Lydia sighed, though a smirk played on her lips. “Alright, if you say so.” With that, she cannonballed into the pool, sending a wave of water over the side of the pool and onto the edge of the chair Betelgeuse was sitting on.

“Hey! Watch it!”

Lydia cackled under the water after hearing Betelgeuse’s reply, which was somewhat garbled due to the water separating them. When she resurfaced, she found Betelgeuse standing over her at the edge of the pool.

“You think you’re so funny, don’t you?” he grumbled, and Lydia laughed again, nodding.

It was Betelgeuse’s turn to roll his eyes as he walked down the edge of the pool with Lydia as she swam below him. “Wow. Peak comedy from Miss Deetz, here. Great, just great.” His tone dripped with sarcasm, and Lydia choked out another laugh through a mouthful of pool water.

In the midst of his mocking Lydia’s petty attempt at a prank, Betelgeuse suddenly teetered off balance as his right foot found the only place where the edge of the concrete was not. Lydia was barely able to kick off the side of the pool as the ghost tumbled into the water and sent a huge wave towards her, getting chlorinated water up Lydia’s nose.

A splitting shriek broke open the sky, quite literally as it began to pour down rain into the pool. Lydia saw a thrashing blob of black and white stripes by the edge of the pool until finally the water calmed, and she saw Betelgeuse clinging to the side of the pool. When he noticed her, he slammed his hand down into the water and splashed her.

“Lydia!”

“What? I didn’t do anything!” Lydia cried, trying and failing to get over her laughing fit. “You did that all on your own.”

Betelgeuse grumped and turned away, still holding onto the concrete like a drowned cat as Lydia retrieved her sunglasses and hat floating in the water.

“I do expect to get paid for getting in the water now,” Lydia heard Betelgeuse grumble.

Lydia chuckled as she placed the hat on the back of the lawn chair to dry. “Don’t go back on your word! You said you wouldn’t get paid to do it, and besides, you did it yourself. You can’t exactly pay yourself, now can you?”

While Lydia slipped back into the water, Betelgeuse let himself sink down slightly until just his head was above water. “Stop twisting my words, Deetz.” There was a slight pause until Betelgeuse spoke up again. “This water tastes funny.”

“Don’t drink it! It’s chlorinated!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Betelgeuse and Lydia finally get some interaction when they're not arguing... Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! This chapter is a little different from how the others have been so far, so please tell me what you think in the comments. See you guys next weekend!


	8. Dear Old Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betelgeuse, as the Ghost with the Most, hardly ever gets bewildered. However, after meeting a handsome young man and getting yelled at by Lydia for no reason, this is one of those rare times.

Between the rumbling sky and Betelgeuse moaning and groaning from getting wet, Lydia quickly decided to evacuate the pool and change back into her clothes. When she came back out of the bathroom, she wasn’t surprised to find a wet-haired Betelgeuse in his suit again as he stood under the umbrella shivering and still complaining.

“Don’t tell me you want to go home now,” Lydia smirked.

The ghost merely grunted and handed her back her purse before returning to his pitifully animated shivering. “Your doomahickey buzzed.”

Quickly Lydia dug into her purse and pulled out her phone. There was a missed call and a text from Delia.

_"Please stop by the store and pick up some milk, a baguette, and lettuce for dinner. And some cat food for Percy. Thanks.”_

Lydia chuckled a little at the randomness of the items and shook her head. “I guess we have one last stop. Come on.”

Dashing over to the car as rain pounded on her shoulders and hat, Lydia dove into the driver’s seat to find Betelgeuse sitting beside her in the passenger’s seat, not even slightly damp from the rain. Lydia frowned. “I need to learn how to do that.”

Betelgeuse didn’t seem to be paying much attention to where they were going, so he perked up when he saw the Walmart in front of them. Lydia was almost to the door until she saw the poltergeist again. He was leaned up against the wall in Charles’s “normal” clothes, and Lydia silently thanked him, even if she would never put up with the indignity of doing so out loud.

Once inside, Betelgeuse was a little more careful about staying closer to Lydia. Every so often, she would feel him grab onto the sleeve of her dress, and she would stiffen. While they weren’t at each other’s throats anymore, she didn’t fancy the idea of him touching her or her clothes. But she supposed this was okay.

She led him back to the chilly refrigerator section and felt him let her go. His silence was eerie as they passed the juices and alcohol to where the different milks were.

As she pulled a gallon of regular milk and a carton of almond milk out from one of the shelves, Lydia started when she heard her name but not from Betelgeuse.

“Lydia? Lydia Deetz?”

Looking over, her brown eyes met a matching pair, just warmer and kinder. The man standing next to her was around her height with swathes of glossy raven hair, and his face bore regal, high cheekbones, dark eyes, and a strong chin. He laughed a little, and Lydia felt her heart flutter. She knew that laugh.

“Vincent Prince!” Lydia gasped a laugh and set down her shopping basket to throw her arms around his neck. “I have seen you in-in—in forever, it feels like!”

Vincent grinned and hugged her back, tightly, firmly, like he always used to do. “I just came back for a little while to visit before going back to Texas to finish school.”

Pausing, Lydia folded away from his hold and looked down at her combat boots. “Still in college, huh?”

He smiled and nodded. “That’s right. I told you I was going into therapy, didn’t I?”

“Well, you’ll have lots of practice if you hang around me,” she chuckled, and Vincent’s smile grew. He was one of the few people who didn’t take her darker sense of humor too seriously.

“I guess I will—”

Vincent was cut off from his next thought from a quiet cough, and he turned, noticing Betelgeuse standing a little ways away. Instantly, Lydia paled and glanced from Vincent to the ghost, though her friend didn’t seem to notice Betelgeuse’s prominent dark circles or the clumps of moss sticking to the sides of his face.

“Sorry, are we in the way?” Vincent asked, side-stepping away from the milk, but Lydia shook her head, touching Vincent’s arm.

“No, I know him. It’s okay.”

Despite the tenseness in her throat, Lydia gently cleared it as she watched as Vincent’s eyes traced her arm down to her left ring finger, which still bore the jade ring, and the color drained from his face. All at once, Vincent pulled away. His shoulders were tense, and his brown eyes were wide and confused.

“ _Oh_.” he managed a weak smile that made Lydia bite her lip. “Well, I mean, uh… I-It was good seeing you, Lydia. You’ve surprised me again, as you always have.”

Lydia’s instinctual urge was to hold onto his arm to get him to pause. “What do you mean?”

She was at a strange midpoint between the two men, both of whom looked like they wanted to bolt in opposite directions. Vincent’s eyes drifted between Lydia and Betelgeuse, and Betelgeuse himself couldn’t tear his eyes away from Lydia as she stared at the mortal man who had suddenly invaded their trip.

“I just…” he smiled that half-hearted smile again and shrugged loosely. “I never knew you were into older men…” 

Immediately Lydia’s heart sunk in her chest and tore through her stomach until it dropped into her pelvis. _Older…what?_

She glanced at Betelgeuse, who looked just as disturbed and confused as she was, and then at her ring. Of course. Never had Lydia felt so stupid! How could she have done this to her poor Vincent?

“Vinny…” she croaked, but he was already two aisles away. Lydia’s heart sunk even deeper until she felt liked it would burst out of her in a gory display. Shoving the shopping list she had made into Betelgeuse’s flustered hands, she snapped, “Stay here until I come back,” before running down the hall after Vincent.

She found him standing in the arts and crafts aisle staring aimlessly at the calendar stickers and glue sticks, and Lydia hesitated in the opening. What on earth could she say to him to make him understand? _Hey, so, I have to marry this guy, or I’ll die._ Knowing Vinny, she’d have to physically restrain him from beating Betelgeuse back to death despite his scrawny appearance. And if Betelgeuse got angry… She shivered, not wanting to think about the myriad of horrible things the poltergeist could do to a simple, average mortal like Vinny.

“Vinny?” she managed to say, and he turned to look at her, his soft doe eyes awash with sadness. It broke Lydia’s heart to see the boy she once loved look so devastated.

When Vincent didn’t move, Lydia drew nearer, rubbing her arms anxiously. “I’m not sure what you were thinking back there, but I promise it’s not what it looks like. He’s just…” her voice hitched with hesitation.

The first hurdle: what was he to her? When he first arrived, they were enemies, for sure and for certain. But then after the banishment and deal-making debacle, they seemed to understand each other more. And today…she didn’t even know what to call today. It was a fluke, really. A weird glitch in the poltergeist’s brain. That was it. She was being nice to him, so he was being nice back, probably so he could manipulate her later. They certainly weren’t…friends.

“He’s just an acquaintance really.”

Vincent blinked in surprise and scrubbed at his nose, and Lydia sighed shakily. He was buying it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She forced herself to smile convincingly.

“Then…then what’s his name?”

The second hurdle. It’s not like she could just flat-out tell him. There had been weird names in the past like Ulysses or Garfunkel, but Betelgeuse was just unbelievable. Who in their right mind would name their child after the tenth-brightest star in the sky? She had to come up with some human-sounding name—and fast. Vincent was staring expectantly.

“O-Oh, his name’s…uh…his name’s…” she paused again. _Betelgeuse…Betelgeuse… What kind of human name could she make from that? Betelgeuse… Tenth-brightest in the night sky… Second-brightest in the Orion constellation… Alpha Orionus…_ Lydia smiled and straightened up. “It’s Ryan.”

“Ryan? Oh…” Vincent sighed deeply and wrung his hands. “I’m sorry that I stormed off, Lydia, really… I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s okay, Vinny,” Lydia smiled. “A lot of people get confused about me and…Ryan’s relationship because we…uh…work together.”

After several moments of tense small-talk between her and Vincent, Lydia murmured an excuse and scurried back to where she had left Betelgeuse—only to find him gone. Snarling curses under her breath, Lydia began the trek around the store, looking for him. When she finally caved and walked to the front of the store to customer service, she saw the short blond ghost standing near the checkout aisles, casually leaned against the shopping cart.

“What the heck?!” Lydia yelled, storming up to him. “What were you thinking?! You broke rule number one, you deliberately disobeyed me, you got all the groceries—you…got all the groceries.”

By now, she could see the smug smirk forming on his dead lips, which made her only want to smack him even more. However, not wanting to cause an even bigger scene than she already had, she led the ghost to the self-checkout section.

“How did you know what to get? Are you sure this is everything? You didn’t buy anything stupid, did you?” she said as she angrily ran the items through the scanner.

The poltergeist shrugged and dug around in his many pockets. “You gave me a list,” he said simply, holding it out to her.

Sure enough, when Lydia whisked it away to inspect it, everything on the list had been crossed off. Well, more like the paper was torn halfway through each item since he had nothing to scratch them off with. Her hands shaking angrily, Lydia threw the note back at him and began shoving the groceries into bags.

“Sheesh, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so pissed since the day I got here,” Betelgeuse remarked. “Not even a thank-you, huh? Man, you’re stiffer than I am.”

“What do you _want_ me to say?” Lydia snapped at him, on the verge of screaming.

Betelgeuse backed up and raised her hands, glancing around at the mortals who were beginning to stare. “Alright, alright, I’ll let it slide this time, geez.”

Lydia sighed and picked up all the bags by herself before carrying them back outside, Betelgeuse in tow.

“Hold up—”

It took all of Lydia’s restraint not to just keep walking. “What?”

“Barbara texted you after you left.” Reaching into his pant-pocket, he pulled out her phone, and this time not even Lydia was sure how it got there. “She wanted flowers for the kitchen table.”

“And you didn’t tell me this while we were in the store?” Lydia boiled.

That smile she hated was back on his lips. “No, because I know where to get flowers for free. C’mon.”

Against her own logic, Lydia followed the ghost around to the back of the Wal-Mart where the dumpsters were. He hoisted himself up and fell directly into the garbage, and Lydia winced.

“Yay, you have your musk back. Can we go now?”

“Not yet—here we go.” He popped back out, landing gracefully in front of her with a bouquet of months-old Valentine’s roses that were definitely dead and rotted. If she couldn’t see that from their smushed, blackened petals, the smell would have given her a clue.

“I don’t think Barbara will want nasty decayed flowers for decoration,” Lydia said, looking incredulously up at the ghost.

Betelgeuse’s smile wasn’t gone. “Not yet.” After a quick glance-around for breathers, Betelgeuse raised his hand over the dead roses. Lime green smoke snaked down from his sleeve and around his hand before drifting down over the flowers. As Lydia watched, the flowers seemed to lose their rotted blackness and tatter, and in a few moments, it was as if they had just snipped them off the rose bush.

Lydia tried her best not to look delighted at the display. Instead, she rolled her eyes and smirked. “Alright, you rascal, how’d you do that?”

“Easy—necromancy.”

“Necromancy?” Lydia asked curiously as they walked back towards the car. “I didn’t know ghosts could learn necromancy.”

He shrugged. “It’s hecking difficult for sure, but the Ghost with the Most’s got it down-pat.” Slumping into the driver’s seat, he scowled and rubbed his chin. “A’course, I’m more of a botanist necromancer, but what can ya do?”

Lydia smiled as she slammed the trunk from loading groceries. “Have you ever tried raising _people_ from the dead?” she asked as she sat down, her eyes wide as she looked across the dashboard at him.

Again, he rolled his shoulders noncommittally. It wasn’t until she started the car that he nodded. “Yeah, yeah, back in my younger days.”

“How young?”

“Bout two hundred or so.”

Suppressing a laugh, Lydia pulled out onto the main road and asked, “And how did that go for you?”

She heard Betelgeuse shift silently in his seat. “Eh, less than good. Got quite the trophy for it, though.”

When she glanced over at him at the red light, Lydia inhaled sharply when she saw that he had pulled the collar of his shirt towards his shoulder, revealing a large black ring on the soft part of his flesh between his shoulder and neck. The notches digging deeper into his pale skin suggested teeth, but something about the mark made Lydia’s stomach tie into knots. This wasn’t an animal bite.

“Zombies?” she whispered as she pressed the acceleration.

“Zombies,” Betelgeuse replied, shifting Charles’s shirt back over his shoulder. “Boy, did I get an earful from Juno about it. Got thrown into the Lost Souls Room for a week or so, but I never stay long with Juno around.”

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” Lydia asked. “She didn’t seem to like you very much when I met her. And Adam and Barbara told me about their experience with her when they went to the waiting room.”

Betelgeuse only waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, yeah, she’s not happy with me right now. But back—way back—before I went rogue with all the bio-exorcist schtick, I was her assistant. I’m sure ya know what _that_ means.”

Raising an eyebrow, Lydia gripped the steering wheel a little harder. “Do I _want_ to know?”

At this, Betelgeuse laughed. “Not if you’re gonna marry me.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Alright, I get it. You were her little side-piece.”

"Well, that’s one way of saying it.” Betelgeuse twisted a strand of blond hair around his pinky finger. “Look, Dark Age ghosts are popular back in the Netherworld. We know how to have a good time no matter what, yanno what I mean?”

Lydia groaned and rolled her eyes. “Don’t even get started on that.”

“Speaking of good times,” Betelgeuse continued, not even stopping from his previous remark, “Who was that guy back there? The one you seemed to be so chummy with?”

Lydia groaned again. She should have expected this question to come up sooner or later, and she still had yet to come up with an answer. Knowing Betelgeuse, it couldn’t be an honest answer, that was for sure.

“He was some guy I knew in high school,” Lydia responded quickly. If she took too long, she knew he would get suspicious.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she shot him a resolute look, telling him not to push it any further, and he complied.

If she told him that her and Vincent once dated in high school—for a solid two years—she wasn’t sure how he’d take it, and being in a confined space with him like a car made it even more dangerous.

Even then, on the whole ride home, Lydia couldn’t take her mind off of Vincent. He was her first love, after all, so who could blame her for missing him after he went away to travel before going to college, leaving her alone in Winter River? And everything that happened with Betelgeuse… No, neither of them would understand. Vincent was too normal and innocent to know anything about ghosts or the afterlife, and Betelgeuse was too abnormal and…and evil to understand why she would be upset about leaving her high school love.

Without a doubt, Vinny was Betelgeuse’s perfect foil. Vincent was gentle, warm, kind, and completely normal. And after the rollercoaster of a life Lydia had so far, she would kill for something normal in her life, especially one so wonderfully normal as him. In contrast, Betelgeuse was callous in both word and action, cold as death, the dictionary definition of evil, and the strangest thing that ever tore Lydia’s life apart.

Lydia would never love Betelgeuse, even if she did marry the ghost. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t marry him.

She’d find a way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this?? Tension?? Oh my. Poor Vincent is very unprepared for the supernatural happenings in his future.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this newest addition, and please tell me what you think in the comments! As always, I love hearing from you guys! <3
> 
> Until next Sunday...


	9. Though I Know I Should Be Wary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Maitlands ask Betelgeuse to answer a question that's been bugging them since their first visit to the waiting room, Betelgeuse confirms one of Lydia's darkest fears, and Lydia demands that Betelgeuse take her on a road trip. Let's see how this goes! Also, yay for worldbuilding!

“You ask him.”

“No, you.”

The Maitlands stood in the staircase, hesitating to enter the living room where they knew the Ghost with the Most was lounging. Lazily he was draped across the couch similar to how one would sit on a therapist’s chaise lounge as he picked at his teeth. To their relief, Lydia was also in the room, studying a long coiled piece of parchment that bore her and Betelgeuse’s contract, so they felt a little more confident in approaching the poltergeist.

Slightly less intimidated than Adam, Barbara was the first to walk into the living room. While she had previously provided bedside care to Betelgeuse after Lydia tried to banish him and interacted with him in short spurts, dealing with him was a completely different matter when he was awake and beginning to glare at her as she approached, those gray eyes as cold and deadly as bullets.

“Need somethin’?” he asked, wriggling his shoulders back and forth as he shifted deeper into the couch.

Barbara opened to her mouth to speak but glanced back at Adam for support. He drew closer and set a clammy hand on her shoulder, which didn’t make her feel any more confident knowing he was just as nervous as she was.

Luckily, Lydia came to their rescue. “It’s okay, guys,” she smiled, looking up from the parchment, “Betelgeuse isn’t half as scary as he looks.”

“I resent that!” Betelgeuse snarled back, making the Maitlands back up slightly. However, Lydia only gave him the chilling look of _‘I’ve seen you look like a drowned cat, you don’t scare me anymore_ ’, and Betelgeuse sighed with an incorporeal breath. “What can I do for ya?”

After they received an invitation, the Maitlands almost tripped over themselves to get the words out, making the poltergeist chuckle. Or, he did, until he heard their question.

“What’s the land of the dead like?”

Betelgeuse lay there for a few moments as he attempted to will his stomach to untie the knot it had coiled itself into. Even Lydia looked up in surprise.

“You aren’t…thinking about moving on, are you?” Lydia said, her voice threatening to warble with emotion. She never imagined the Maitlands would ever consider it.

“No, Lydia, of course not,” Adam was quick to reassure her. “We were just curious. After all, all we saw of it was the Waiting Room for the Dead.”

As Adam finished, Betelgeuse found his voice again. “Well…well, its… Which one do you wanna know about?”

“Which one?” The Maitlands looked at each other in surprise.

Again, Lydia looked up, but this time she put down her parchment. _This might be something good,_ she thought.

“Yeah, doi. Every ghost worth their salt knows that. Seems you two need a sprinkle.”

With a grunt, Betelgeuse sat up, allowing the Maitlands to sit down on either side of him. Once they did, the poltergeist preformed quite a bit of unnecessary butt-wiggling and jostling in order to ensure a good three inches between his hips and theirs as they were pressed into the arms of the couch. Finally, when the Maitlands had managed to make themselves semi-comfortable on their own side of Betelgeuse, the ghost thrust his legs open, smushing the Maitlands into the sides of the couch once again and digging his knees into the side of their legs.

“So which one will it be, folks?” he asked with a teasing tone and a wicked grin.

It was Barbara who first cleared her throat and managed to murmur, “Both?”

“Good choice!” he slapped them both on the knee closest to him, making them jump, before slouching down further into the couch and pressing them even harder. “Now, there’s a really important difference between the Netherworld and the Neitherworld. Any guesses?”

Lydia raised her hand.

“Not you,” Betelgeuse scowled. “You know too much.”

Groaning, Lydia put her hand back down as Barbara and Adam shook their heads.

“The Netherworld is where all the dead-deads are. The _Neither_ world is where are the living-deads are.”

Adam sighed frustratedly. “What’s the difference?”

“Simple. What woulda happened to you if Round-Boy had finished that exorcism?”

The two ghosts shuddered and looked at each other across the expanse of poltergeist that had forced himself between them.

“I…I suppose he would have killed us…again,” Barbara murmured.

“Give the lady a prize. So you would have gone to…?”

“The Netherworld?” Adam asked.

“Bingo. Land of the dead-dead: lost souls, civil servants, and…” he shuddered, “case workers.”

Barbara sat silently to the leftmost of Betelgeuse and Adam and stared down at her hands. Watching her closely, Lydia tried to place her expression, but couldn’t. It was somewhere between shock and disturbance.

“So that’s all there is to the Netherworld? Just the Waiting Room?”

Unsurprisingly, the poltergeist grunted noncommittally. Withdrawing a box of cigarettes from his suit pocket, he lit one from a flame on his thumb before waving the fire out. “Babs…” he said, puffing out a cloud of smoke as he spoke, though it sailed directly into a glowing portal, sending the smoke elsewhere, “The Netherworld’s got nothin’. It’s just the Waiting Room, the Lost Souls Room, ‘n everythin’ else is just…somewhere else…wherever ghosts go when they peacefully moved on themselves.”

He leaned over, practically resting his head on her shoulder, and patted her cheek. “Me? I wouldn’t know anythin’ about all that peaceful stuff.”

With that, he shifted himself upright and cleared his throat. “But the Netherworld’s the boring one. All ya do there is just get yer information through before ya either pass on or get citizenship to the Neitherworld.”

“Land of the living-dead?” Adam asked.

“Exactly, toots.” Betelgeuse leaned his head back against the back cushion of the couch and blew a torrent of smoke into another portal. “The Neitherworld’s the fun part. ‘S basically like this world, but nobody’s breathin’!” he chuckled hoarsely.

“Ju… _Just_ like this one?” Barbara asked haltingly. “But I thought the afterlife was supposed to be peaceful.”

“Well whoever came up with that idea was either outta their mind, high, or both. Movin’ on is the peaceful part. But nothin’s different in the land of the dead. People hate each other just as much there as much as they do here.” Taking another deep drag of his cigarette, Betelgeuse swallowed the smoke this time. “An’ if yer wondering what it looks like, just pick up any dystopian novel, ‘n boom, ya got it on the nose. But those books don’t really mention…uh…ahaha…Sandworm attacks, so…” he trailed off lamely, and Barbara could feel how tense his leg was as it pressed against hers.

“You mean that’s normal in the Neitherworld?” Lydia asked from her chair across from the couch.

“Happens all the time, Lyddie. Just ‘bout every day one of ‘em’s bustin’ up through the roads or outta a grate. They’ll chomp down a few unfortunate souls before divin’ back through. But if yer smart, ya won’t get caught. Sandworms ain’t the smartest creatures in the world…or out of it.”

Barbara rubbed her arms as she remembered grappling the Sandworm charging towards her and climbing onto its back, desperate to save Lydia from the marriage only moments away from being completed. Its back had been disturbingly cold and firm under her weight, as if she was sitting on a puppet or machine rather than an actual creature.

“What happens if you get eaten?” Adam asked worriedly.

Even from across the room, Lydia watched as Betelgeuse forced himself to swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down nervously.

“Well, it’s…it’s…” He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed his arms uncomfortably. “ _Most_ ghosts’ll discorporealize once they go down the ole gullet.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Well, luckily fer me, the Sandworm decided I tasted good, so I got chewed up a bit before I got swallowed. But Juno saved my sorry hide…for some reason.” He shrugged loosely. “I don’t think about it much. ‘M not dead-dead, ‘n that’s all that matters.”

“Do you think the Neitherworld a safe place to live?” Barbara asked, making the little hairs on the back of Lydia’s neck stand up.

Slowly Betelgeuse withdrew the cigarette from his mouth and pinched the burning end between his fingers, apparently not feeling the searing heat. Lydia couldn’t place the expression sitting on his harsh face.

“Babs,” he said, his voice a low grumble. “If ya think about it, nowhere is really safe. I figured you two’d know that by now.”

With that, he stood and walked away, letting his footsteps echo down the wood panels. The Maitlands slowly looked at each other. He was right. Nowhere was really safe. After all, they had died in Winter River, so close to their home. They never thought of their little town as dangerous, but the bridge leading to their house ultimately sent them to their doom. Putting his arm around his wife, Adam silently led Barbara away as they fled to the attic. Lydia watched sadly before also getting up and trailing after the direction where she heard Betelgeuse’s footsteps.

Out on the side patio of the house, Betelgeuse felt like he had just swallowed a whole iceberg. Curse those Maitlands and their annoying questions! The ghost floated back and forth as his head became engulfed in the smoke of his second cigarette of the day.

Of all things, why did they have to ask about the land of the dead? And why, why, why did they have to ask about _sandworms_? Just thinking about them sent goosebumps up his arms, goosebumps that should be impossible being that he was an unfeeling corpse. He just knew his body was rolling in its grave if it wasn’t completely decomposed by now.

The sound of the door leading outside creaking open assaulted his ears, and he whipped around, his whole body tensed and his eyes wide. Even dead, his flight-or-fight reflexes were ready, but when he saw Lydia standing in the doorway and staring at him, he rolled his eyes and leaned against the white railing.

To his annoyance, one of Lydia’s finely shaped eyebrows lifted. “Sorry if I startled you,” she sassed, resisting a chuckle. Despite this, her smile didn’t last long. She could tell the poltergeist was on edge.

Dry thunder rumbled above them as Lydia left the safety of the doorway and took her place next to Betelgeuse, who was still huffing smoke as steadily as a factory chute.

After a moment of heavy silence, Lydia tried not to smile yet again as she was finally able to return his own question: “What’s got you so pissed?”

Rumbling out a groan from deep in his chest, Betelgeuse released a cloud of smoke with such little force that the twisting gray trails began to run down the front of his shirt. Finally, he murmured, “It’s nothin’ you need to worry about. Now whaddya want?”

“Huh?”

“You don’t come after me unless you want somethin’,” the poltergeist stated matter-of-factly as he sat down on the round white table that sat matching the white flooring and single wall of the side patio.

Lydia wanted to refute that but couldn’t, so she merely shook her head. “Do…do you think the Maitlands are thinking about moving on?”

“I _know_ they’re thinking about it.”

Immediately, her breath hitched as she stared down at her lacy black and purple socks. Before Betelgeuse’s eyes, her heart was breaking, and he knew it. He just didn’t feel anything about it.

“How…how do you know?” she asked, refusing to cry until she knew for sure.

“I heard ‘em talkin’ about it,” Betelgeuse replied, and Lydia’s heart dropped. “Sometimes I like to hide around the house as inanimate objects to hear what I can hear. I don’t usually go up in the attic that often, but Babs was using the cup I turned into to wash her paintbrushes.”

“Why would they do that?” Her response was a whimper as Betelgeuse folded his legs into a pretzel on the table.

Another puff of smoke was released as he allowed himself a single sigh. “Look, Lyds, ghosts are finnicky like that. They’ll want one thing, then they’ll want another thing. And the thing is…they just want what’s best for ya.”

Slowly Lydia slumped to her knees with her head in her hands. “Then why are they going away? I-I love them! They’re like parents to me!”

“Well—and this is just what I heard, so don’t give this too much mind—but what I heard was…” Clearing his cheese-grater throat, Betelgeuse began speaking again, perfectly matching Adam’s voice to a T: “ _‘I’m so worried about Lydia.’_ ” His voice switched to Barbara’s without a pause, “ _‘I know, me too. She should have been moved out by now and starting her life. Not stuck here in this house. Adam…do you think it’s…us?’_ ” Betelgeuse’s voice—or, rather, Barbara’s voice—warbled with emotion.

As she listened to Adam and Barbara’s conversation playing from Betelgeuse’s throat like a record player, Lydia blubbered a little. This was her fault? They wanted her to leave? But why? They loved her, didn’t they?

“So they’re going to move to the Neitherworld because of me?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking in front of Betelgeuse.

“Sounds like it to me,” the poltergeist responded, his voice returning to its natural, rumbly self.

Wiping her red nose, Lydia stood up, deep in thought. After a moments reflection, she walked over to Betelgeuse and grabbed him by the tie.

“Alright. So maybe they are moving on,” she said with an air of dignity and determination in her voice. “So you’re going to show me the Neitherworld so I can make sure it’s safe for them.”

Just a few inches above her knuckles, she saw his throat contract and his Adam’s apple move again as he swallowed the phlegm and grave dirt that had just clogged his throat as she spoke.

“But that’s against the rules!” he objected. “I mean, a breather’s never set foot in the land of the dead and came back still breathing!”

She gave his tie a short tug. “If I remember correctly, you said you didn’t have any rules.”

He made a familiar sound, and Lydia leaped back as he spat out a mucus and moss ball before loosening his tie from around his neck so it was barely tied together as usual. “Hands off the goods, darlin’,” he said, running a hand down the front of his throat. After a moment of rubbing his neck, he nodded shortly. “A’ight, you’ve twisted my arm. I’ll take ya. But no pictures unless you wanna get eaten by sandworms—whether you marry me or not.”

Despite herself, Lydia let out a squeal of excitement before rushing upstairs to get dressed. Betelgeuse watched her go as he finished his cigarette before cracking his neck and heading inside as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed! Next chapter, we explore the Neitherworld! Lemme know what you think so far in the comments.


	10. Still I Venture Someplace Scary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though I know I should be wary, still I venture someplace scary. Ghostly hauntings I turn loose... 
> 
> Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!

The idea of a skeleton-faced grim reaper dressed in a shadowy robe and the belief that death meant darkness and sorrow and void was a ridiculous notion. Who even came up with that? The things that the superstitions of humans could imagine. Maybe it was the thought of funerals and lowering someone into the cold, hard ground that pounded in that assumption, or the dead’s frigid flesh and stony, unhappy face when the casket was closed.

In all reality, death was fun! Betelgeuse didn’t really understand why so many mortals tried everything in their power to stop the passage of time. It wasn’t like they could, anyway. Human beings truly baffled him with their desire for “anti-aging” products and their “hospitals”, attempts to drag people back from the grave. Death was much more fun than the silly living world where everything mattered so gosh darn much and one wrong step could land you half-dead and bleeding out. It was true when he was alive 700 years ago, and it was true in this “new age” of cars and planes and those new-fangled buzzers called “cell phones”.

All of this he told Lydia when she thundered back downstairs, all dolled up in her knee-length black dress and matching black hat with the veil covering her face. While she was probably the most ghostly human on the planet, she was still human, which meant she was in danger of being thrown to the sandworms if anyone discovered that she was still breathing.

“So how are we going to get there?” Lydia asked, breathless from running up and down the stairs. “Draw a door?”

Betelgeuse honked a laugh that Lydia couldn’t help but snicker at.

“Nah, the B-guy’s got some tricks up his sleeve. Trust me, you don’t wanna be drawing a door unless you want an earful from ole Junebug herself.” The ghost led her upstairs, floating in a seated position with his hands tucked in his pockets.

Lydia found herself led into her bedroom, and she frowned as Betelgeuse admired some of the more “feminine” aspects of her room: her bed with its lacy canopy, her closet with the dresses inside carefully sorted by shades of black, and her vanity, on which was littered her dark-colored eyeshadows. He also noted the skeleton curtains hanging in front of her window and smiled.

Walking over to her vanity, he reached forward and placed his long nails against the glass of her mirror, and Lydia winced, imagining her poor mirror with five deep scratches down the middle. However, when she opened her eyes again, she saw his hand crackling with electricity, which was beginning to enter the mirror. After moment, the mirror flashed twice and sent a wave of green smoke rolling through Lydia’s room. She coughed a little, though she was grateful the smoke didn’t smell, and looked up to see Betelgeuse in the mirror where her reflection should have been.

“Heya, howzit goin’?” he grinned, resting his elbows on the vanity’s reflection so he could prop his head up with his hands.

She edged closer. “Great. So you’re in there, and I’m out here. Now what?”

“Now…” He leaned closer to her so his nose pressed against the glass. “Now you say those magic B-words.”

Despite the dread-inducing and possibly dangerous premonitions she felt in her stomach, Lydia swallowed nervously and recited, “Betelgeuse…Betelgeuse…Betelgeuse.”

At first nothing happened, but then, all at once, a wind whipped around her room, pulling her and only her towards the mirror. She fought it, her hands grasping desperately for something to hold onto only to come up empty. She fell headlong into and through her mirror until she felt something grip her arms and pull her upright.

Betelgeuse smiled, watching out of the corner of his eye as Lydia’s own eyes swam around surveying their surroundings. She was between worlds in a tower that seemed to go up forever, though in circumference it was snug. Bats flitted between dry-rotted banisters above, and moonlight shone through a grate in the distant ceiling, creating a checkered spotlight on her and the poltergeist. 

Smiling still, he turned his eyes back to her for a reaction, which was utter shock that there was something beyond the round globe—or flat globe, he wasn’t sure what scientists had decided on nowadays—of water, magma, and dirt she knew as her home.

For the longest time, Lydia had been hanging on the edge between life and death. Being already dead, Betelgeuse was high-tuned to everything paranormal while Lydia, a breather, wasn’t supposed to be, but she was not as simple-minded as others with a heartbeat and breath in their lungs. She had true eyes--those brilliant brown orbs that could detect the supernatural and pierce through the most finagled of Betelgeuse’s schemes. It was funny, honestly, how she would reprimand him and demand for the truth despite knowing the truth could not be extracted from Betelgeuse’s tongue even with the finest of instruments.

Even Lydia, who had an affinity for the occult, knew that she had that image of a shadowy underworld baked into her mind after the death of her mother and her almost unhealthy obsession with Greek mythology, specifically Hades. Betelgeuse knew it as well, having seen the pile of Greek mythology books piled up on her desk while he perused her room. Despite himself, Betelgeuse still felt a twinge of jealousy building up in the pit of his never-ending stomach. What did a god of the underworld have that he didn’t?

“This way, Lyds,” Betelgeuse said with a slimy smirk as he floated up the stone steps wrapped around the edge of the tower with Lydia trailing behind.

Before them stood a purple wooden door, which was carved into an twisted teardrop shape. The iron hand squeaked loudly as the ghost turned it, and Lydia’s stomach squirmed in her belly. The way the door groaned as if in pain as it was pulled open made her feel like she was doing something unspeakable, something most people couldn’t even imagine doing—and she was. A blast of cold air hit their faces, but Betelgeuse didn’t shiver like Lydia did.

“Welp, this is it,” he cackled as he stepped through and promptly disappeared.

Lydia swallowed anxiously and creeped closer to the door, which continued to send waves of cold air towards her, like she was standing in front of an open freezer. The edges of her black combat boots met the edge of the door, and she looked down the side of the tower to the unnatural earth below. Far below. Gasping, Lydia began to step away from the edge until she was suddenly shoved forward by the shoulders, sending her tumbling down.

Betelgeuse watched Lydia as she fell. She fell a long, long way, screaming all the while, which coaxed out a cackle from the ghost. When she finally landed face down in the soil, she choked and spluttered, dragging her ebony locks out of her face. The grayish, dusty ground itself tasted like death and decay, so Lydia was not expecting her eyes to be assaulted by glittering lights when she looked up from her ungraceful departure from the realm of the living to the dead.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” Betelgeuse exclaimed, standing between her and the neon necropolis only a short mile away, its signs, buildings, and neatly paved roads all begging her to come within its walls.

The mortal staggered to her feet, clutching a little at her throat. Every three gulps of the chilling air she took felt like only one breath in the realm of the living, as if she had suddenly fallen onto the top of a mountain. The sight of the city before her was just as dazzling as the view from a mountain peak, even with it being almost blinding.

She felt Betelgeuse loop her arm around his, but she didn’t even look at him as he led her closer to the city. It glared down at them with a million glowing eyes against the blood red sky, which bore both a sun and a moon at once like they were eyes as well.

“It’s so…” Lydia gasped out, struggling to catch her breath as the poltergeist led her through the black city gates. Her shock and the thin air kept her breathing quickly to keep herself standing.

“Freaky? Weird? Disturbing?”

“Wonderful!”

At once, she let go of his arm and spun in a circle, prancing in front of him. The passersby stared, but she didn’t care. She stared right back--at everything and anything. In the same quick moment she had dashed away, she was right back with him. Those all-seeing brown eyes stared up into his pale gray ones, and Betelgeuse opened his mouth and closed it like a water-deprived fish. She was grinning up at him like a kid on her birthday.

“Is it always like this?” she asked, her voice still light with rapture and air deprivation.

Betelgeuse stared back at her for a moment before drawing back and releasing a chuckle. “Always, Lyds,” he responded. His eyes drifted over the city that he had known for the past seven centuries. The lights were just as blinding, the clamber of strangers was as steady as a pounding kick drum as usual, and the dead’s mumbles were still a chant. Apparently, Lydia’s all-seeing eyes couldn’t see everything in the heat of elation.

_Death is fun_ , he reminded himself as Lydia dragged him forward down the street and unconsciously chose to ignore the more unappealing parts of the city. Those who died homeless were still homeless. Those who died thugs were still thugs. It’s not like they knew of anything different or better. But with the dazzling lights, deafening chatter of the crowds, and brilliant vermillion of the sky, even Lydia—mysterious, intelligent, ghost-like Lydia—was deaf and blind. She only had a mouth to shout her praise of the city as Betelgeuse followed behind, nodding blandly every time she spoke.

“This is everything I hoped it would be and more,” Lydia gasped as she finally sat down on an ornate bench near the park laden with blackened trees twisted up like they were pieces of modern art rather than dead plants. “I never want to leave.”

She looked up at Betelgeuse standing before her and felt her smile fade slightly. She had never seen the impish poltergeist’s expression look so serious.

“One day, you won’t be able to.”

At once, Lydia’s throat went dry, and she swallowed in an attempt to coax it back to normalcy. The air seemed to get chillier as she sat on that bench with the ghost staring down at her, his gaze heavier than one of the towering buildings around them.

Quickly glancing down at her dusty combat boots, Lydia managed to argue. “Are you saying that I won’t like the city anymore when I’m… Why wouldn’t I? It’s wonderful!”

Betelgeuse rolled his eyes and turned away as Lydia continued to stare at him with those searching eyes, his hair and the tail of his ragged trench coat flapping behind him despite there being no breeze that Lydia could feel.

“Maybe for the first few hundred years.” His response was a low grumble in his chest.

“Is being dead really all that bad?” Lydia asked. “It seems pretty fun to me.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not!” Betelgeuse whipped around, and a fleck of moldy spittle landed on Lydia’s cheek. Grimacing, she wiped it off as the ghost continued, “It’s not. It’s just so samey and boring and--”

“Well, so is the living world,” Lydia replied, crossing her arms. Her brow was furling like it always did when she was upset. “Except it’s even worse.”

“Haha. Cute, real cute.”

The poltergeist was leaving, and Lydia dashed after him. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?!” she demanded, grabbing his arm. However, her hand closed around nothing as Betelgeuse took on a more transparent look.

“If you like it so much, then you can stay here forever!” Betelgeuse snapped. “Get a feel for what it’s like being me!”

With that, he disappeared completely, leaving Lydia alone on the street. A chill ran through her, but she elected to ignore it. She didn’t need him. She’d be fine. She’d still have fun exploring without him.

Despite her self-reassurance, Lydia felt only emptier and emptier all alone. She meandered through the malls not buying anything, sat in a karaoke bar barely hearing the music, and stood at the top of the highest skyscraper not seeing the view below her. Everything that was wonderful about the city faded away the longer she wandered by herself.

Where was he? Finally, the emptiness was filled--replaced with anxiety. She raced down the stairs, stealing glances at the dead eyes of the corpses walking up the staircase to stand on top of the building and ignore the wondrous view Lydia herself was disregarding only a few moments ago.

“Betelgeuse!” Lydia called as she burst out of the building; her lungs strained to suck in the wallpaper-thin air.

She began to see them. The figures tucked under benches and the shadows hiding in alleys, weapons drawn. There were eyes on her, oh, so many eyes, some glowing, some dead and hollow.

“Betelgeuse!” A second time, she called his name, though it came out as more of a scream as she began to panic.

They knew, they knew, everyone knew she didn’t belong. She wasn’t meant to be here, here in this city of the dead. She still had what little breath she was dragging into her lungs. She still had a heart ringing in her ears. She still had veins working hard to fuel blood through her body, muscles contracting violently to push her forward. She still had eyes that saw everything. Why had they gone blind to all of this? Her eyes that had always seen too much now saw too little. But not anymore. She’d never be blind again.

“Betelgeuse!”

She slammed into a wall, a wall that wrapped around her and submitted, and they fell. They fell for what felt like forever, and despite the wind tearing past them and pulling tears from Lydia’s eyes, she forced her eyes to open. She saw green, blond, brown, pale white, and gray. _Betelgeuse_.

Their falling slowed, and she felt him pulling her up from under her arms. The wind lessened, though her dark hair and his long coat were still blowing around them. The mortal’s lips quivered beneath the ghost’s glares.

“Now do you see?”

“It was awful!” Lydia sobbed, curling up in midair as they floated in the nothingness of their travel. “Never take me back!”

At this, Lydia felt the ghost’s glowering stare soften, but when she looked up, he looked away.

“What was so bad about it?” he asked as he released her and left her suspended on nothing in her fetal position.

Lydia opened her mouth to spill everything onto him: the hollow gazes of the ghosts, the terrifying bright lights, the deafening thunder of feet on pavement, her own emptiness growing the longer she stayed in the artificial wonder of the city of death. But her mouth refused to comply, croaking uselessly.

“Looks like the curse is already working.”

“Curse?” Lydia, whimpered, looking up.

“Nothing too serious.” The poltergeist gave a nonchalant shrug. “Mortals who’ve been to the land of the dead can’t talk about it--if they somehow get back to the living world.”

Lydia gripped his arms, and he tensed.

“You’re taking me home?” Lydia felt a smile growing on her wet cheeks.

“Well, I’m not takin’ ya to Honolulu.”

Lydia straightened herself, her feet planting on the ground the instant they arrived back in her empty room. Sucking in the thick, warm air, Lydia sighed in relief and sat abruptly on her bed as she continued to shiver. The ghost cleared his throat and sank halfway through the floor.

“Well, that was an adventure. I’ll...uh...leave ya ‘lone now.” Betelgeuse’s pale gray eyes watched her for a few minutes before shifting away as he began to disappear through the carpet.

Lydia stared at the spot on the ground he disappeared through, making sure he was really gone. As she walked back over to her vanity, she scrubbed her eyes, which created faint raccoon-like marks with her dark makeup.

She couldn’t let the Maitlands move to the Neitherworld. The hollow, emotionless gazes of the ghostly denizens still made her shiver as badly as she did while she was in the land of the dead. The Maitlands were so bright and cheerful and full of hope for the future. She couldn’t let them turn into shells of what they were in life, nor could she give up what they gave to her. When Charles and Delia were busy, they were there to support her. They were the only ones who really understood her, her dreams, and her feelings. True, her parents tried much harder after she admitted she had thought about jumping off the bridge when she was fourteen, but they couldn’t quite give her the warmth that the Maitlands could, despite being ghosts.

Slowly Lydia reached down and opened one of the bottom drawers in her desk. Her fingers scrabbled about in the nearly empty drawer until finally her fingers met what she was looking for, and she pulled it out.

A photograph, very old and worn and a little warped from being wet with tears, of a blond, normal-looking man, a raven-haired woman with dark makeup, and their pudgy, dark-haired little baby girl. Smiling despite her tears, Lydia flipped the photograph over to read the description penned in eccentric, swirling handwriting: “Deetz Family, 1975”.

Lydia ran her thumb over her mother’s handwriting one more time before flipping it back over and studying her mother’s face. Now that Lydia was grown up, she was looking more and more like her mother every day. Even Charles admitted it, even if he didn’t like to discuss his first wife too much around Delia to save her feelings. Lydia did, however. She talked about her all the time—or used to when she was in the throes of grief after her mother’s death.

A tear plopped down on her mother’s face, which bore a soft Mona Lisa-like smile. What would Emily have said about this entire situation? Knowing her, she would have kept an air of grace and seriousness when Juno came and informed them of the situation, but as soon as Juno left leaving only the poltergeist, Emily would have gone wild with outrage that her daughter was being treated this way. Lydia still remembered her sixth Halloween where she dressed up as an authentic witch, and Emily flung herself to her daughter’s defense if any overzealous observer began to admonish her.

Honestly, Lydia wasn’t sure what her mother would have thought of Betelgeuse. No doubt, she would be able to handle him without problem, perhaps even bending him to her whims. If he stepped out of line, she would have no fear threatening an exorcism, and if he tried to bully her using his powers, she would know just how to deal with a ghost like him.

But on the other hand, Emily might have adored him, though not in the way he would like. Ever since she was younger, she had been fascinated by the supernatural, a trait that didn’t change even into woman and motherhood. It shouldn’t have surprised Charles that Lydia began to pick up the same traits from an even younger age than her mother. Ghosts were one of Emily’s favorite subjects, surpassing even magic and alternate universes, which were two of her main interests. No doubt, she would have loved the Maitlands and asked them about a billion questions about what it was like being a ghost. But Betelgeuse was an entire different story. She would baffle him. His personality, too, would suit her better than even the Maitlands, who got along with just about everybody, except, perhaps, Betelgeuse himself. 

Lydia smiled to herself as she pictured Emily and Betelgeuse interacting. At first, they would test each other’s waters. She might ask him a probing question about the land of the dead, and he would return it with a vaguely lecherous comment, which she would instantly rebuff and thus earn his respect. After that, she imagined, they would be thick as thieves in testing his powers in pranks against Charles and the rest of the household. They could easily be best friends…if Betelgeuse was a good person. And that was a big, if not impossible, if. Emily was friendly, but she absolutely would not tolerate some of his more philandering habits.

Swallowing, she pushed the photo back into the drawer. This needed to stop. Her mother was never coming back, and Betelgeuse would never be what she would imagine him to be, even in the best of circumstances.

She wiped her nose as she felt it itch with an unexpressed sneeze. Her throat, too, felt tight, but she wasn’t sure if it was because of her earlier panic and later tears or something else. With Betelgeuse gone, she could finally get what she really needed: rest. Then she would tell the Maitlands everything that happened in the Neitherworld and convince them never to leave. They wouldn’t after hearing how awful it was. She needed them still.

Lydia shed her boots and changed into a night gown. Glancing at the clock, she started in surprise and propped herself up on her elbow. The clock next to her bed read only 3:26 in the afternoon. When she was being sucked into the mirror, it had read 3:20. As she stumbled up, Lydia shook her head, trying to remember how long she had spent in the land of the dead. She and Betelgeuse had walked about the city for about an hour and a half before he left, then she wandered around by herself by who knew how long. She looked back down at her watch, which read 9:26 at night. Six hours she had spent in the land of the dead while only six minutes had passed here in the land of the living.

_At least it isn’t the other way around,_ Lydia thought to herself. _It’s no wonder ghosts always lose track of time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading guys! I thought it was about time Lydia saw what Betelgeuse's world looks like, and it turned out much creepier than I thought it would. Is this why Betelgeuse wanted out so badly?
> 
> Comment and tell me what you guys thought of my interpretation of the Neitherworld! See ya'll next Sunday!


	11. Lost Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We skip back in time a little to see what exactly happened to Betelgeuse after he and Lydia separated in the Neitherworld. Betelgeuse embarrasses himself at a bar before coming to a startling conclusion about his relationship with his bride-to-be.
> 
> There is a bit of a suicide trigger near the end of this chapter, so I will have the beginning and ending of the trigger marked in bold lettering.

He couldn’t believe this. If his lungs still had breath, they would have been heaving from anger. Stupid girl. Stupid breather. Stupid, stupid, stupid! 

Betelgeuse snarled again as he tossed one last glance back at the park where Lydia sat. If she liked it so much, she could stay. It’s not like she could go back without him. With any luck, she would be discovered and fed to the sandworms, and she wouldn’t be a problem anymore. No Lydia, no forced marriage, no sandworms. All his problems would be solved, and he could continue with his afterlife of women, cons, and running from the law.

He realized he was floating when other ghosts were beginning to stare. After all, floating was really done only in the living world where humanity’s unbreakable boundaries were like biting into cotton candy for ghosts. In the Neitherworld, however, floating was a bit of an oddity. Not that Betelgeuse minded, but he didn’t really feel like being at the center of attention for once in his afterlife.

Slipping into the first bar he laid eyes on, Betelgeuse simmered down into a stool and tapped his chipped fingernails on the polished wooden counter until the barkeep finally turned around. The man was polishing a glass, which was very difficult since he was trembling head to toe. His lips, nose, and fingers were blackened with frostbite, and his skin was pale, perhaps even a little blue.

“B-Betelgeuse!” he exclaimed, his icy lips cracking into a smile. “I d-didn’t think you were g-gonna c-come back. The officials said th-that you were fed to the…” he glances around nervously and lowered his voice, “s-sandworms.”

Betelgeuse grimaced at the name as the barkeep poured him a generous glass of alcohol—ice cold, as always.

“Well, y’see, it’s like this…” Betelgeuse said loudly before taking a long, dramatic sip. Some of the other patrons at the bar glanced over at him and drew closer. After all, everyone who was aware of Betelgeuse’s existence knew that he always told a good story, especially when tipsy. “So I get eaten, right? Right. ‘Bout halfway down that sucker’s gullet, I get summoned outta there by the ole Junebug.”

Some of the listeners exchanged glances and chuckled.

“So’s, I get snapped outta there but just as soon as I appear, she drags me back to the house where I got eaten in the first place!” Betelgeuse slammed down his glass. “Pour me another will ya, and I’ll keep talkin’.”

The barkeep immediately filled his glass, and, as promised, the poltergeist continued, “Well, first off, I figure out that I’ve been stuck for a whole decade in that darn thing’s stomach! Come on! You’d think that Sandworms would have better digestion with all those ghosts they horf down. Anyway… It’s a long story, but the short of it is that I gotta marry this breather girl or we both get fed to the sandworms. Neither of us are very happy about it, but what can ya do?”

He took another long gulp of his glass as the other patrons who were listening sat back with their eyebrows raised.

“So if you’re bound to marry this girl, then why are you here?” Betelgeuse heard someone ask.

“Eh,” he response was a grumble. “I just wanted to come back and see the sights for a bit before I get the ole ball ‘n chain…or the sandworms. That’s more likely at this point.” With a smile and a shrug, he offered the barkeeper his glass yet again. “Besides, no one can beat Sunny’s service, eh?”

This earned him another free refill, and he slurped that one down just as quickly.

The ghost at his left, a worn sailor with a large, cannonball shaped hole through his torso looked up at him incredulously, “I’d seen ya walking ‘round the city earlier with some pretty lady, Betelgeuse. If you’re not careful, those sandworms might get you sooner than your think.”

Betelgeuse’s old drinking buddies all chuckled as soon as the sailor mentioned the lady. “Looking to have some fun before you get hitched?” They teased. “Who’s the lucky chick this time?”

Choking, Betelgeuse spluttered a little as half-drunk alcohol splashed down his chin. The other ghosts only howled with more badgering laughter, and one clapped him on the back so he spat up the rest of the alcohol in his mouth.

“Don’t be embarrassed, old boy! We know how you get around. You brag about it all the time! Who’s the girl this time?”

As he turned in his stool and met the eager gazes of the ghosts he’d been drinking with for centuries, Betelgeuse sighed. He might as well indulge the poor souls who rarely stepped outside the walls of the bar.

“Well, she’s…she’s just some girl I met,” he murmured as vaguely as possible.

Another man, a huge miner covered in stones from the avalanche he was crushed in scoffed. “You gotta give us more than that, man! What’s she look like. I mean, is she…?” he raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes, as if that was supposed to tell Betelgeuse something.

The poltergeist stared at the man for a moment before it finally clicked in his decomposing mind. “ _Oh_. Uh, well, she’s…she’s…” Dangit, why were the words struggling to come out? Normally he didn’t struggle to talk about women like this at all. In fact, he _liked_ to talk about this kind of thing! Why was it coming so hard to him now of all times?

Clearing his throat, Betelgeuse set his drink back on the bar and let his hands curve side by side in the air as they carved out the shape of Lydia’s waist and hips. To be honest, Lydia wasn’t the most…impressive girl that he’s been seen with, to put it semi-politely. Her pear-shaped silhouette left something lacking in the eyes of most men, mainly from her upper half. However, this only left Betelgeuse looking at her less lecherously. How annoying she was also helped him not feel his usual unholy urges towards those of the opposite gender.

But when one of the men in the bar whistled in admiration of Lydia’s body, something in Betelgeuse’s beer belly tightened, and he allowed a snarl to pass his lips. Immediately, the other male patrons in the bar who had seemed even slightly interested flinched in unison.

“’M not sharin’ in case you were wondering,” the poltergeist announced loudly. “She’s not some Dante’s hooker. She’s a lady.”

This coaxed a snort out of one of the waitresses, one that Betelgeuse knew _very_ well.

“A lady?” she demanded. “And what would a lady want with a tramp like you?”

“Well, it’s not like she likes me or nothin’!”

He regretted the words almost as soon as they left his lips as the rest of the bar whispered in shock. No woman disliked Betelgeuse. Even at the very worst, they tolerated him and were amused by his charms. At the opposite end of the worst spectrum, there were some women still aimlessly haunting the city looking for him, longing to spend just one more night with him.

Feeling crushed under their stares, he grabbed hold of his glass and slammed back the alcohol with his signature astonishing speed. The rest of the bar was silent as he chugged down three more large glasses. Once it seemed he was sloppy enough to safely talk to, a frail ghost who looked like he would be too young to be in a bar if he was alive looked up and asked almost hesitantly, “She’s hot, though, right?”

Betelgeuse’s throat and chest were burning from the alcohol, and a puff of steam left him as he opened his mouth to reply. These jerks would regret ever assuming he wasn’t good enough for her. No, no. He’d already condemned himself, resigned himself to not posing as her lover, but he could at least convince him that she was too good for him. They were already half convinced when he called her a lady.

“Hot?” He coughed out more steam before rising to his feet. “Mate, she’s frickin’ gorgeous! A goddess among mortals!” he swung his arm with drunken enthusiasm, almost sending the bartender toppling. “She’s got—she’s got this long, black hair that looks soft enough to stuff a pillow with it!” he turned sharply, and some other patrons leaned away in fear of getting smacked, or worse. “She’s got these eyes that look right through you.” Leaning forward, he prodded a sharp nail against the miner’s bulbous nose.

The miner, however, only raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got to say, Betelgeuse. You usually focus on, uh…other parts of women’s anatomy.”

A smarmy smile raked across the poltergeist’s features. “Patience, friend. I haven’t even started on her legs yet.”

Hopping up onto the bar, Betelgeuse continued to gloat, “I _have_ seen her in a bathing suit before.”

A gasp rippled throughout the crowd accompanied by a few whistles.

“A tankini, but still…” he shrugged loosely. “Gave me plenty to look at.”

Now, this was a complete lie, and Betelgeuse knew it, though he was trying to convince himself otherwise. He had been too busy bickering with Lydia and screeching about how he got soaked in the pool to gawk at her legs. He couldn’t even really remember what they looked like. But if there was anything he excelled at, it was putting on a show, a good one at that.

After pleasing the crowd with a vivid description of his “raven-haired beauty”, Betelgeuse contented himself to continue drinking as the other ghosts in the bar finally resumed their own conversations. He almost forgot that he was frustrated with her. Settling down on the edge of the bar, Betelgeuse played with thoughts of a different nature. They were bound to come up eventually, but they’d never struck him before until the question of Lydia’s looks came up.

She was his fiancée, after all. If they were going to get married—and they were—it’s not like their relationship could stay the same as it was. She couldn’t continue hating him once they were married and living together, and he couldn’t continue gallivanting around with chicks he’d pick up on the street. He would be a committed man. As his eyes absentmindedly wandered back down to his left hand, he clapped his other hand over his fingers.

Then another thought intruded his mind. Something…weird, even for him. At first, it hit him like a bolt of lightning or a good thwack to the back of the head, and he immediately dismissed it. But after a moment, it came slipping back in like a rattlesnake writhing its way into a greenhouse where the household’s children were playing.

Kissing Lydia, his pretty, dark-haired, unwilling bride-to-be. Making her officially his. Instantly, he shuddered, unable to really picture it. The limit of his usually healthy imagination bothered him, of course. After all, he knew exactly what Lydia looked like. But he just couldn’t picture those pouty red lips pressing against his purplish and swollen from lack of oxygen. While he could imagine what he would look like with her near-black red lipstick smudged all over his smirking mouth, the kiss itself was impossible to visualize. 

Pushing past the more romantic and unachievable aspects of marriage, he thought of what most husbands and wives did other than kiss and spawn a few squalling gremlins. For some reason, his mind rushed to the Maitlands as he tried to think of the “perfect couple”. Like he and Lydia could _ever_ be like the Maitlands, not that he wanted to be. They were too simplistic and dumb. Lydia was more than that. He was way more than that. For a moment, he mulled over Lydia’s parents as an example before quickly dismissing it. He would never be a woodworking Adam or a jittery Charles, and Lydia would never be a soft, motherly Barbara or a high-strung Delia.

He found to his irritation that picturing him and his future wife in domestic situations was just as impossible as picturing the two of them in romantic ones, mainly because the two were intertwined. Everyday life was filled with gentle touches, warm hugs, and light pecks on the cheek or, even better, on the lips. Or, at least that’s what he saw when observing the Maitlands and even Charles and Delia’s strange marriage. He never knew that sort of thing personally.

Maybe taking things slower would be better. Maybe he could imagine him and Lydia sharing a bed, balanced precariously on opposite edges as they avoided each other with a wall of pillows between them. He smiled, though it didn’t last long. That he could picture, and it was so…so…lonely.

Scoffing, he let his head drop and his chin rest in his palm. Being committed sucked.

His meditations on the impending doom—er, marriage—were interrupted from shouts outside the bar. Sunny stomped over to the door and thrust it open. “What i-in blazes—?!”

“Sandworm!” screamed a ghost as he ran by, arms flailing. “Sandworm coming this way!”

The glass fell from Betelgeuse’s hand and shattered upon the floor, making all eyes turn on him as what little blood he had left in his corpse rushed out of his face. _A sandworm? Coming…this way?_ Turning, he rushed to the window as he watched passersby run for their afterlives, and a roar shook the glass panes that he rested his hands against.

“Something wr-wrong?” Sunny asked as he closed the door. “We should b-be safe in here, y-you know. Nothin’s gonna g-get us.”

But Betelgeuse’s mind wasn’t resting on the sandworm. Heck, for the first time in years, it wasn’t resting on himself, either. While he couldn’t picture Lydia ever being happily married to him, he could picture her in vivid detail disappearing forever through a sandworms jagged teeth.

Teleporting out of the bar, he resituated himself on the tallest building in the city and stared down from the heights as he hoped to fix his sights on the figure he had just described in the bar only a few hours ago. His eyes were frozen on the writhing black and white snake below, but he tore them away as he searched for the only living thing in this side of the mirror.

Trying to find her among the scattering ant-sized crowd was futile. She would be hopelessly lost by now, impossible to find, if she hadn’t already been eaten. Anger caused the alcohol he had drunk to boil in his stomach. That sandworm wouldn’t cut off his nuptials and get away with it, even if neither party wanted them to be completed.

Just as he was about to soar down there and show that sandworm who was boss, a familiar tingle ran up his spine and tugged at his ribs. A living person had just said his name…and they were nearby!

Another, stronger tingle and a more painful jolt wracking his body sent him lurching forward, teetering dangerously on the edge of the building. However, he started to lose that sensation when the third call didn’t come.

“C’mon, Lyds, you’re so close,” he coaxed out loud as if she would hear him. “That’s it, babe. Just one more, and we’re outta this dump.”

_Say it say it say it say it say it say it say it!_

As the meaning of the word “say” became mush in Betelgeuse’s mind, he leaped off the side of the skyscraper just in time to be ripped through time and space, dragged by the skeleton to the summoner.

To say he was frazzled by the end of it was an understatement. She had been quite a way’s away, so he had to whip around buildings, stiff joints that hadn’t been cracked in centuries popping as he was pulled around like a ragdoll. When he finally stopped moving, it was only a moment of respite as something—no, someone—crashed into him. His body collapsed around theirs, and he fell backwards, allowing himself to teleport them both between realms without a moment’s consideration. As the Neitherworld fell away, he finally got the chance to see who had thrown themselves onto him. The first thing he felt was his fingers closing around impossibly soft hair. Looking down, his eyes were met with black, black, and more black. Black dress, black hair, black eye-makeup. _Lydia_.

Said eye-makeup was running. She was crying in front of him, not caring whether or not he saw. Immediately, he clammed up a little, unnerved. He hated when women cried in front of him. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but the sight of a woman’s tears and red-blotchy face instantly wracked him with the masculine, _living_ instinct to protect and relieve her pain. Ghosts weren’t supposed to feel that; they were supposed to feel nothing. But the sight of Lydia’s tears caused the ghost to feel uncomfortably alive.

He managed to get her to explain as they hung out between planes of existence, curious on how her opinion had changed. After all, when he left her, she claimed she never wanted to leave, and now here she was crying like…like…like any sane person would after spending the amount of time in the land of the dead as she did. Lydia was still human, after all.

However, when Lydia tried to describe the nitty-gritty details of how she felt, her throat rebelled, making a sound rather akin to a toad.

“Looks like the curse is already working,” he murmured, rubbing the faint stubble growing half-heartedly on his cheeks and chin.

“Curse?” Her voice was pitiful as her wide brown eyes met his.

“Nothing too serious,” he replied. _Why was this so hard?_ Still, she looked a little better after that. “Mortals who’ve been to the land of the dead can’t talk about it--if they somehow get back to the living world.”

Before he knew it, Lydia’s hands were grabbing onto his coat like a lifeline, which was almost sadly ironic. “You’re taking me home?” She smiled, and Betelgeuse narrowed his eyes as he felt his stomach pang again. What was going on down there?

“Well, I’m not takin’ ya to Honolulu.”

After dropping Lydia off in her room for some much-needed rest, Betelgeuse slipped downstairs. His original plan had been to hang around in her mirror, but it was painfully obvious she needed to be alone after her experience. He didn’t want anything getting thrown at him like things normally were when he hid in a reflective surface. Instead, he contented himself into turning himself into a Deadly Nightshade plant with a black and white striped pot sitting on the window still with the rest of Delia’s plants as the red-headed breather came closer.

“How are you doing this morning, my pretties?” she cooed to the plants. Lovingly, she stroked the leaves of every one until she reached Betelgeuse. “I don’t remember buying you…” she murmured, rubbing her chin as Betelgeuse winced.

_Probably should have gone for some sort of sissy flower,_ he thought.

“Oh, well. I’m sure Lydia bought you,” she said to him. “She’s always loved…unconventional things. Even unconventional plants!” However, he laugh sounded half-hearted. If Betelgeuse had lips in his plant form, they would have been pursed thoughtfully.

“That girl has always been so mysterious to me,” Delia continued, spritzing him with water from her spray bottle and making him shudder. Luckily, she didn’t notice. “Ever since I married Charles, she’s just…well…” she shook her head. “I wish I knew what was going on her in head. She was so excited about going to college when she was younger, but now we’d have to kick her out of the house to get her to go.”

_College?_ Betelgeuse looked up at Delia’s pensive, worried expression.

“And as an artist myself, I respect her building her artistic abilities, but I do worry about how she’ll be able to support herself. She’s doing pretty well right now, but most girls her age are moved out and married by now. Some of her friends from high school are even having kids! Lydia just…fell behind somewhere along the way…”

Betelgeuse scoffed a little as his leaves twitched. Once again, he struggled to picture Lydia in a domestic situation, even if it _wasn’t_ with him. Even harder was imagining Lydia popping out a few dark-haired brats of her own. With any luck, they’d inherit her looks and love for the supernatural. Not that she was going to have any with him as her husband.

Besides that, how dare Delia compare Lydia to her friends? He betted that they were all normal and boring, wearing the most popular styles and buying the newest and best of everything. Or, that was his opinion. Lydia would probably argue that wanting those things didn’t make you boring. But still, it wasn’t like Lydia, who wore nothing but black, slightly frumpy clothes—not counting her bathing suit—and loved silly things like poetry and antique gas lamps.

Delia finally spoke again, interrupting Betelgeuse’s scattered whirlwind of thoughts. “Though, I do suppose this whole mess with that ghost does throw a wrench into her future plans…if she has any, of course.” 

_“That ghost”? Wow. Not even one B-word out of her._ Betelgeuse rolled his currently non-existent eyes. Even then, he knew what she was saying was true. By the end of this year, Lydia’s life as she knew it would be ending one way or another. Marriage was a big deal, and Lydia didn’t seem to ready for it if she wasn’t even out of her parents’ house yet. What was the deal with that anyway? Last he saw of her, she was looking for any way to get away from her parents, even considering…

**\--Trigger starts--**

But he had stopped all that. Distracted her. He couldn’t say he didn’t see the suicide note. At first, he wasn’t sure, but the messily scrawled words “by the time you read this” sealed it. Even if she didn’t say his name like he so desperately wanted her to, she was going to talk to Barbara about him. She had a goal now. She was going to talk to someone who definitely wouldn’t let her die.

He had watched her leave him and willed the note to fall out of her grasp. Sure enough, the sheet of notebook paper slipped from her weak fingers, and fell upon the floor. As she closed the door, he blinked twice, and the note appeared in his hand.

The note was tear stained and the smudge ink ran together with the dark makeup that came off with her tears. _“I am utterly alone. By the time you read this, I will be gone. Having ~~jumped~~ plummeted off the Winter River bridge.” _

Before he even thought about it, the note was crumpled up in his grasp and burning.

**\--Trigger over--**

“ _Oh_!”

Delia swatted madly at him as one of his flowers burst into flames like a candle. The plant seemed to shake itself before going back to normal, the flower that had been burning turning to ashes in Delia’s hand. She continued to stare at him as she wiped the ashes off on her pantleg.

“I might need to put you outside…” she murmured.

Picking him up, she carried the plant out to the windowsill and placed him against the window carefully, making sure he wasn’t too close to the edge. “There you go, my little fire hazard,” she said dotingly as she gave his striped pot a gentle pat before walking back inside.

Immediately, Betelgeuse turned back to his ghostly with the mostly self. Well that was…weird. Though, he didn’t mind being called someone’s little fire hazard. It was one of the few nicknames he actually liked. Glancing right and left, he realized he was still outside, sitting upon the windowsill and looking down the hill at the small town of Winter River.

So this is what it felt like to be out… He swung his legs a little, the heels of his combat boots hitting the wall of the house with a satisfying _thunk_ as he did so. So this is what it felt like to be free…

He knew the wind was blowing. The grass and trees were moving, swaying back and forth like his legs. He didn’t really remember wind that well. Sure, there was the occasional gust in the Neitherworld for dramatic effect, but it’s not like he actually _felt_ it. So maybe he wasn’t completely free, but it was the first time he had been out of a house in the living world since…ever. It was kind of…nice was the only way he could describe it, even if he was loath to ever use that word. But even if it was nice, he was by himself, which was infinitely worse than death itself to him.

Leaning back against the wall, he looked up at Lydia’s closed window and murmured, “I am utterly alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! We haven't really got much of Betelgeuse's thoughts on this whole thing, so here it is! Please comment and tell me what you think! More shenanigans coming next Sunday...
> 
> Because the trigger was kind of short, there wasn't much missed. Betelgeuse recalls the first time he met Lydia while they were in the attic when Lydia was thinking about suicide. He stole her suicide note as she was leaving to go find Barbara and set fire to it.


	12. Lemons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lydia feels the consequences of going to a place that colder than death, and Betelgeuse and Barbara have an unbeating heart-to-heart.

“It’s the worst thing to ever happen…” Lydia croaked as she placed her hand against the window, her fingers less than an inch from the raindrops dripping down the glass pane. “My life is over. Why…why did this ever… Why did I think my life was worth _anything_?”

Charles frowned. “It’s only the flu, pumpkin. I’m sure you’ll be alright.”

“The flu in the middle of summer?!” Lydia demanded, shouting as loudly as her tender throat would allow.

“It happens.” He shrugged and glanced down at the thermometer in his hands. “But you do have a fever, so you should probably stay in bed for now.”

Lydia scowled and leaned back against the mound of pillows propped up against the headboard of her bed. Stay in bed. Sure. It’s not like she had any plans to go out at _all_. None whatsoever. Now all she had to do was lie in bed and do nothing. Delia and Charles would insist reading would strain her eyes and give her an even bigger headache than she already had, and the Maitlands would protest to her getting up at all.

As her father left the room to report the news, Lydia rolled over onto her side and shut her eyes. If there was nothing else to be done, then she’d just sleep.

“Lydia, honey,” Barbara’s soft voice cooed as she shook Lydia’s shoulder.

The living woman groaned and looked up at Barbara. “Barbara…” she moaned. "I just got to sleep…”

However, Barbara only giggled. “You’ve been asleep for several hours, actually. It’s noon already.”

“Oh.” Lydia’s bleary eyes turned towards her clock, which read 12:04. When she had gone to sleep, it had been 8:00.

“How do you feel?”

In response, Lydia shut her eyes and blew a raspberry, coaxing another laugh out of Barbara as she sat down in midair. Lydia blinked in surprise.

“Hey… Betelgeuse does that…”

“He does,” Barbara replied, brushing stray bits of her perm behind her ear. “It looked useful, so I watched him for a little bit to learn. I thought it was about time Adam and I learned to float.”

Lydia smiled, though it was weak, and while Barbara might have thought it was because of her sickness, Lydia knew the true reason. What Betelgeuse told her…were the Maitlands really planning to move out, or was Betelgeuse just playing games with her mind again? There was really only one way to find out, even if she hated it.

“Speaking of…um…” Lydia glanced over at the ghost and cleared her throat. Her chest felt tight. “There was something he said the other day…about you and Adam.”

Barbara blinked. “He did? What was it?”

“Well…” Lydia trailed off as her nerve began to leave her. She hated this. She hated this so much. _Why was this so hard? Just say ‘are you and Adam really moving out’? It’s only seven words!_

Luckily—or, perhaps, unluckily—she was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps tramping up the stairs. In an instant, the door was thrown open, the loud banging sound making Barbara break her concentration and fall on her rear. Turning her eyes to the doorway, Lydia tried not to groan. There stood Betelgeuse. He was wearing his usual black and white suit, but he had his brown trench coat in his hands. It was bunched together on the end as he held like a sack, stretched and pushed out with lumps, so many strange lumps that gave Lydia an even sicker feeling in her stomach.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he announced as he marched into the room next to Barbara, who had risen to her feet and was rubbing her lower back.

“What…is in there…?” she asked fearfully.

“They’ll help.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything!”

Betelgeuse rolled his eyes so dramatically that his head swiveled back in a half-circle on his shoulders before dropping the edge of the coat. Wincing, Lydia and Barbara tried to steel themselves for what was to come, but, unfortunately, they were still unprepared.

Lemons—huge, sweaty, almost neon yellow lemons—tumbled from the coat in an unceasing waterfall. Bouncing on the floor, smacking Barbara’s legs, and rolling under the bed, an inordinate amount of lemons sprawled out onto the floor, too many lemons that should have been able to fit in the confines of Betelgeuse’s coat for their sheer number and size.

Finally, as the last lemon dropped, Lydia forced herself to blink and murmured, “Is that all?”

“Nope.” Without another word, his hand dove into his pockets and began digging out more lemons and dropping them on the floor. Lydia and Barbara watched in horror as more lemons began to invade the space as his large, filthy hands disappeared again and again into his pockets only to withdraw more lemons. More lemons. Even more lemons.

When his pockets were seemingly empty and he started to pull out snakes and mice instead of lemons, Barbara asked haltingly, “Are…are you done?”

“Nope.” This time, his hands went to the red beetle-pattered vest he was wearing, and he unbuttoned it with surprising speed, revealing the dirt-smudged grey tank top underneath—and a horde of about a dozen more lemons that were held against his waist by the vest fell to the floor simultaneously, scattering among his and Barbara’s feet and the other lemons on the ground.

Swallowing, Barbara glanced at Lydia. “Now…?”

Betelgeuse stared at them with wide jaundiced eyes. Now over ankle deep in the yellow citrus, he reached up and pulled off the beat up “GUIDE” hat and removed the single lemon balanced on his head, handing it to Lydia.

“Now,” he announced, “I am done.”

For a moment, the two women were too dumbfounded to speak. It wasn’t until Lydia looked down and saw the mess of lemons on her floor did she exclaim, “Betelgeuse!”

“What?! What?!” he whined, his hands a flurry of motion.

“Why the heck did you bring me all these lemons?!”

Indignantly, he snatched the lemon he had handed her back. “Well, you have the flu, don’tcha?”

Lydia hesitated. “Well, yeah, but—”

“So, this’ll make you feel better.”

His hand went into his pocket and pulled out a stiletto knife, and Lydia and Barbara watched closely as he swung it around and cut the lemon into seven perfect slices. Handing them back to the bed-ridden Lydia, he said only one word.

“Eat.”

Lydia blinked, staring at the pile of slices in her hands. The way he had said it was almost so reverent, she was compelled to eat the lemons, but she shook her head. None of this was making any sense—less sense than Betelgeuse usually made.

“Why…just…why?” she asked, still shaking her head.

“Cause it’ll make you better! Geesh!” He was snatching up another lemon and cutting through it with expert speed and precision. “You’d better be glad I washed this knife, though. It’s m’ shavin’ knife.”

Lydia, who was in the middle of a lemon slice, gagged, and Betelgeuse laughed as Barbara glared at him.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” he insisted. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a rusted old pocket knife speckled with blood and flakes of short hair. “ _This_ is my shavin’ knife.”

This time, both Lydia and Barbara gagged and turned away, which only coaxed more howls of laughter out of the poltergeist as he continued to slice up a second lemon and dump the slices into Lydia’s lap. Her face puckered, half from the sourness and half from confusion, but her mouth was so full of lemon, all she could do was look at Barbara. Luckily, she took the message.

“Betelgeuse,” the ghost began, resting her hand on his arm and making him pause from cutting through a third lemon. “Why are you—um… _how many_ lemons are you going to make Lydia eat?” she asked nervously, glancing at the pile of lemons on the floor.

“Just three.”

“Three?” Lydia protested. “Then why did you bring so many?”

The poltergeist scoffed and rolled his eyes like she was stupid, and that made Lydia feel only more indignant. “C’mon this is common knowledge here! Y’eat three lemons cut into seven slices a day until you’re better. If you’re rich that is. But seein’ as you can get a pound of lemons for two bucks now…”

“Stop, stop, stop,” Lydia waved her hands. Her stomach was feeling a little gurgly from all the lemons, and her lips were still stinging from the citrus. “Three lemons a _day_?”

“That’s what I said, toots. Three lemons a day, seven slices. Oh, and gimme those rinds.” He handed her the last set of seven slices and snatched up the rinds before turning and floating aimlessly around Lydia’s room. “You gotta tell me you’ve got some kinda sewing kit in here, right?”

Lydia and Barbara exchanged another glance, but, by now, they both knew better than to argue with him.

“Under my bed,” Lydia murmured through a mouthful of lemon.

Immediately, the poltergeist flung himself at the bed and pulled out the sewing it, extracting a needle and white thread from the box. As he whistled a quick but somewhat haunting tune, he struggled for a moment or two to thread the needle before tying it off and punching the needle through the rind.

“Ow, ow, ow…” he murmured, a few more colorful words slipping out afterwards as he shook his fingers.

Barbara tried not to laugh at the seemingly omnipotent poltergeist’s struggles with the sewing needle. “You don’t have a lot of sewing experience, do you?” 

He gave his hand another hearty shake before sniffing indignantly. “No,” he replied stiffly as he pushed the needle a little more carefully through the second rind. “Back in my day, sewing was a woman’s job.”

Both Lydia and Barbara opened their mouths to protest but were interrupted. “An’ I know it’s different _now_. Besides, if I didn’t learn anything from the ladies, I’d have a lot my holes in my britches, wouldn’t I?”

When neither woman replied, he cleared his phlegmy throat and strung the last five slices together, tying a knot after each rind so it hung like a chain. After tying off the last and largest knot, he set that string aside and began on the next fourteen slices as Lydia and Barbara watched in quiet curiosity with only the rain tapping against the roof and windows supplying an sound.

Finally he finished all three strings and floated over to the window. With the length of empty string at the top, he fastened it to the curtain rod and let the lemon rinds dangle in the window much like a mobile in a nursery, even batting at them a little like a curious cat.

“There. Done.”

Lydia looked at the lemons in the window and then at him. “Okay…? So what are they for?” she asked as Barbara began picking up the scattered lemons and piling them up in the corner.

“That, my dear Lydia, is symbolism. First off, them lemons are good for ya. Full of vitamins ‘n crap—”

“So I’m guessing the symbolism is in the number?”

He waved his hands mock celebration. “Yay, give the girl a prize. Yah, numbers _always_ have symbolism. I would know with the other threesies thing. But the whole 777 is the opposite of 666. It represents Divine Guidance ‘n angels.”

Barbara looked up at the poltergeist in surprise. “Wow, I…I didn’t know you were religious.”

Casting her a half-glance over his shoulder, Betelgeuse murmured, “I was born in the 1300s. _Everyone_ who’s _anyone_ is religious.” He turned back to Lydia. “Now, supposedly if you eat three lemons and hang the rinds up in 777 in your window, you should get better in a few days. If you’re rich—or, in our case, if lemons are going for cheap—you replace the rinds every day. But if you don’t get better in seven days, yer pretty much doomed.”

“That’s…harsh…”

She was graced with a mere shrug. “That’s life. Kids were the worst about dyin’. Here one minute, gone the next, yanno?”

Barbara looked hurt. “That’s a horrible thing to say!”

He frowned at her. “That’s _life_. ‘S why I never had any annoying buggers of my own. Stupid, loud, prone to dyin’. We didn’t really have the indoor plumbing and food regulations you have nowadays, yanno? We did our business in buckets ‘n holes in the ground, and ate whatever we could shove into our mouths because, hey, there might not be food tomorrow if the wind blows the wrong frickin’ way, so eat what ya got and say your prayers!” he threw his arms out in a dramatic shrug.

Glancing from the lemons hanging in the window and back to him, Lydia asked, “Were…you rich back then?”

The poltergeist made a familiar sound and prepared to spew a mucus ball into his coat until he quickly remembered he was in his “nice” black and white suit. He stood there frozen, looking a little bit like a rooster that was interrupted from crowing, before stooping down and spitting into the brown coat that he dropped on the floor.

“Rich!” he chuckled as he swaggered over to the nearest chair and plopped down, his coat in his hands. “What even is ‘rich’ anymore? What’s money to a dead guy, eh? You know the old saying: ‘you can’t take it when you go’.”

Lydia’s eyebrows raised as she analyzed his vague answer. “So you _were_ rich?”

“Some distant relative was a wealthy merchant or whatever,” he murmured, struggling to get comfortable in the chair. “I had what most well-off medieval people had: a warm house, a maid or two, food on the table, and I wasn’t payin’ nobody for my freedom.”

At this point, he had pulled out a cigarette out of somewhere and started to smoke, teleporting the smoke away as soon as it left his mouth so Lydia wouldn’t yell at him. Still, the girl frowned, though it wasn’t about the smoke itself. He smoked a _lot_. More than she remembered, but then again, in their first encounter, she had only seen him twice, not counting the snake incident—and in one of those incidents, he was smoking.

This time, Barbara dared to ask a question: “If you didn’t have any children…were you never married? I know that children were pretty important back then…”

Lydia stared at Betelgeuse as he stared back—no, stared past her, his wide, steely grey eyes boring into the wall behind her head. Quickly he huffed out a few puffs of smoke that he didn’t bother teleporting away, his stomach rising up and down as he breathed.

“No, no, I wasn’t married.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

“Nahhhh…” he drawled, dropping his cigarette into the trashcan by Lydia’s desk and stretching his short, stocky frame. Once he sank down so some of his back was resting on the seat instead of the backrest and his legs were splayed out in front of him, he continued, “Don’t worry your little head, Bobbie. I haven’t thought about the Before with a capital B in a _while_. Sheesh, I’m old.”

This coaxed a giggle from Barbara and even a smile—a smile!—from Lydia. Stretching up his arms, he tucked his hands behind his head.

“So I guess we gotta wait ‘n see what happens with Lyds, huh? I dunno what the bureaucracy will do if Lydia dies from the flu, seein’ as the whole point is her bein’ alive when we get married—” Realizing he said too much, the ghost abruptly paused, reached into the trash can, and stuck his cigarette firmly between his lips.

To his dismay, he watched Lydia arch a brow and give him the skeptical look that made his inside squirm. “Why does it matter if I’m alive or not? I thought this was about us not being thrown to the sandworms, not what was going to happen to you if you marry me.”

“Wasn’t it part of your curse that you’d come back to life if you married a living girl?” Barbara asked.

“Well, yeah, but also, no. Juno, that grimalkin, had my curse changed. When we get hitched, you’ll get all thissss…” he suggestively gestured up and down the length of his person, “but I’ll still be the Ghost with the Most, not the breather with the most. Capiche?”

“So why would I need to be alive?” the human woman snarked, crossing her arms.

Betelgeuse groaned. “Aren’t you sick or something? Why can’t you just lay in bed all sweaty and pathetic so Barbara can fawn over you or whatever?”

A smirk, not too different from his own, smeared across Lydia’s features, which were flushed from sickness, and the poltergeist cursed himself mentally.

“So?”

“ _Apparently_ ,” Betelgeuse began with a big, smoky sigh, “they think they can get rid of me if I marry a breather. I’ll get stuck on this side. Sorta like if I was alive, but without all the bits and bobs of being visible and no mold.”

Barbara stepped back a little to get out of the way of the conversation while Lydia leaned back against the headboard. “And do you think that’ll work?”

“Ha!” the poltergeist’s legs scrunched up with his sudden exclamation and he took another drag of his cigarette.

“I’ll take that as a no.” 

“A _big_ no, sweetums.” He sat up again, this time leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His jaundiced eyes were wide and flashing with evil and mischief. “The Netherworld high-ups think they can control me, but you know what? They _can’t_ ,” he replied, his voice a low and snarky growl rather than loud and commanding. “I’m the Ghost with the Most and I’ve been around for centuries longer than those revolutionary-era and 1920s schmucks. I’m more ghost than all of them combined, and if they think they can stop me from doing whatever I want, it’d be like trying to stop a train wreck by standing in the middle of the track.”

Lydia swallowed anxiously. “Well, they’re doing a pretty good job right now.”

She almost regretted her words when he blew a short, angry spurt of smoke out of his nose. “Whaddya mean?”

“I mean,” Lydia began, “they _are_ forcing you to do something you don’t want to do—marry me.”

The poltergeist opened his mouth to reply, but when no sound ended up coming out, he snapped his jaws shut around his cigarette and rocked his chair back and forth.

At this point, Barbara decided to speak up. “She has a point, you know. If you really can do anything… You _can_ do anything, right?”

“A’course I can!” Betelgeuse snapped back, his voice squawking a little with hurt pride.

“Then then they captured you or took you into custody after what happened here, why didn’t you just…I don’t know…kill them?”

Choking on his smoke, Betelgeuse hacked loudly as his head became engulfed in a cloud of smoke that should have been too big for his lungs to inhale at once. “ _Wow_ , Babs!” he exclaimed, eyes wide. “I knew you loosened up a little since last time I was here, but _dang_!”

When Barbara realized Lydia was also staring at her, she blushed and fiddled with her hair. “W-Well that’s not my suggestion or anything. I just thought that would be something you might do.”

“S’not like I didn’t consider it,” he conceded, leaning back in his chair. “But, uh…I couldn’t. Neitherworld’s higher-ups, they’re all cursed—er, blessed I guess? No one can lay a finger on ‘em, or juice ‘em, or _whatever_ ‘em, yanno?”

Sighing, Lydia curled up and rested her head on her knees. “So we couldn’t kill them even right now?”

“Lydia!” Barbara protested.

“I wish,” the other ghost sighed.

“Betelgeuse! I can’t believe you two!”

He shot her a scowl. “Look, Bobbie, you’re not the one who’s getting forced to marry a six hundred year old dead guy covered in mold. When you are, gimme a ring, and then you can say what’s right and wrong in this situation.”

“I know, but murder is never right,” Barbara argued.

“Ah, well.” He clapped his hands once and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “That’s real funny coming from you—”

“Betelgeuse, don’t,” Lydia warned.

“Seein’ as you were _perfectly_ happy with shoving me down a sandworm’s gullet.”

Like he turned on a switch, the room went silent, the only sound being the soft whirring of the ceiling fan. Barbara swallowed. Lydia swallowed. Betelgeuse still leaned forward in his chair and stared at them like they were the only other beings in the universe.

“P-Please excuse me,” Barbara murmured before quickly phasing through the door as she fled.

As Betelgeuse leaned back in his chair, Lydia sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I’m too sick for this.”

“I thought you said you didn’t wanna be sick.”

“Yeah, but you’re giving me an even bigger headache, so thanks a lot! Besides, you’re the one who got me sick with that freezing Neitherworld air!” she snapped back. Slowly she leaned against the headboard and added, “You really hurt her feelings, you know.”

“You think I care?”

“No, but she cares about _you_.”

His response was a honk of laughter, and he reached down and chucked a lemon at Lydia’s head. “Don’t kid me. She hates me! C’mon, seriously, do you _know_ what I did to her when he first met. Kiss on sight, no questions asked. Among other things…” With a shrug, he settled back in his chair. “Also, I tried to marry the daughter she never had, so I’d say that, yeah, she hates me.”

“No, she doesn’t. She does care about you. That’s just how Barbara is. She knows that you’re in the same dangerous and uncomfortable situation as me, and she worries! It doesn’t matter if she thinks of me as her daughter, or if she thinks you’re a disgusting six hundred year old pervert. She still cares about you, whether you like it or not.” Lydia coughed a little as she got her breath back. “When I punched you in the face, who took care of you?”

She watched as his gray eyes shifted right then left. “B…Barbara.”

“Uh-huh. And who gave you a room without having to be asked for one?”

His hands twisted around each other. “Barbara.”

“And who checked on you to make sure you ate dinner that one night?”

He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. “Great. So you’ve succeeded in making the big bad poltergeist feel bad about a little suburban house ghost. Now what? It’s not like I’m going to apologize. I was _right_.”

Rolling her eyes, Lydia replied, “So maybe you were right. If we ignore the fact the you were trying to force a fourteen year old to marry you and maybe, hey, she couldn’t steer a massive dirt snake from Saturn, then, yeah, she did murder you. But that doesn’t mean you can just go out and call her a murderer. Barbara…she’s kind of sensitive about that. After all, she was the one who swerved to miss a dog and drove off the bridge, not Adam. That guilt is still on her, and she feels really bad when she kills _anything_. Even if it’s a smelly old poltergeist.”

Betelgeuse sighed and put out his cigarette on his leg. “Point taken. But I’m not apologizing. I was still right, even if Barbara’s not a murderer.”

Lydia tossed her hands up and lied back down. “Why do I even try?”

Thankfully, Lydia’s sickness helped her drift off to sleep quickly, and Betelgeuse waved a hand over her face to check if she was really asleep before floating up to the attic where he found Barbara sitting in front of her and Adam’s model of Winter River. She was snuffling a little and touching the red covered bridge between the house and the town.

“Don’t waste your tears on somethin’ so stupid, Babs.”

She started and whipped around staring at him with red eyes and a blotchy face. “Wh-What do you mean?”

Betelgeuse leaned against the doorway to the attic. “Once you die, you only get so many tears, so save ‘em for something really important. When you run out, you’ll wish you had more. I mean, the black market’s always an option, but it’s kinda gross to cry someone else’s tears, yanno?”

He advanced across the creaky floorboards of the attic to perch himself up on the high stool next to Barbara’s chair. The attic was in better shape than it was when he first arrived. It looked less like an attic and more like a bedroom, though some of the boxes from before were still stacked in the corner waiting to be organized or put away in storage. Barbara and Adam’s old bed with the handmade quilt stood below the lone window in the attic, the model town was positioned in the middle of the room, and the walls were covered in the Maitland’s original vintage wallpaper. It looked like a room from how their house used to be before the Deetzes moved in.

Glancing back at the town, Betelgeuse stared at the graveyard that used to bear his rancid occupancy the first time he was summoned to the house until Barbara spoke up again.

“Are…you out of tears?”

“This isn’t about me,” he replied quickly. “This is about you.”

She looked up at him for a long time before rubbing her arms. “I…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to storm off like that.”

His forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows raised incredulously. “You call _that_ storming off?”

“You might not be used to it,” Barbara replied, “but I don’t just walk out of conversations. So, yeah, that was storming off.”

“Gee, I wonder what it would look like to argue with ya,” the poltergeist teased.

However, his smile uncharacteristically fell when he noticed Barbara wasn’t paying attention to him, but, rather, to the model again. Leaning over his knees to get a better look, he noted how un-clumpy the plastic turf looked in such a small scale. Every building was built and painted so well, he remembered forgetting he was in a model at all but in the actual town of Winter River. The fairy-lights her a nice touch, too. For a while, Betelgeuse had forgotten what stars looked like, which was a real shame seeing as he named after one. The fairy lights helped.

As Barbara watched, he reached forward and plucked the red roofed bridge from its place over Winter River’s namesake and inspected it. It showed no signs of damage, and he briefly remembered driving over it in his and Lydia’s little “adventure”. He knew he got chills for some reason, and now he knew why. His old Guide instincts were kicking in, urging him to sniff out the newly-deads and whisk them away to the Waiting Room. Even a decade after the Maitland’s death, their spiritual signature still remained at the bottom of that river.

“So I hear you’re not the greatest driver,” he said, his tone practically unreadable.

Immediately, the house ghost curled in on herself. “Lydia told you…?”

"She didn’t tell me—well, she kinda did. But I’d been watching ya’ll for some time. I knew you were gonna kick the bucket sooner or later, I just didn’t know when, yanno?” As Barbara continued to stare, Betelgeuse waved his hands defensively. “Look, I just wanted someone to help me out and catch me a break, okay? You two looked good and stupid, so I thought, ‘hey, why not?’.”

Barbara wilted. “So you were planning to take advantage of us the whole time? You never wanted to help us?”

“No! I mean, yes, I did, but at the same time I didn’t, and…” the poltergeist paused, realizing that he was digging himself into another grave. “Look, I’m not the bad guy here! Never was! I tried to get the Deetzes out of your house, _honest_. Tried my gosh darn hardest, I did. I mean, sure, I got real pissed off when you called me off during the whole snakey thing, but other than that I was on your side the whole time!”

“And the wedding?”

Beetlejuice squeezed the miniature bridge between his thumb and middle finger, and Barbara winced, expecting it to shatter into wooden shards. However, he just sat there, squishing the hollow bridge up and down like a stress toy. “That _weddin’_ ,” he spat. “Stars, I was an idiot back then.”

Blinking in surprise, Barbara looked up at him. She hadn’t expected him to say that of all things. “But…you were trying to break your curse.”

“Look, Babs, I might not like to admit it, but Lydia’s right for once in her miserable little life. This whole thing is my fault. And, hey, maybe if I hadn’t tried to marry Lydia, then we’d all be saved this little drama-fest with the sandworms, but I didn’t, and we’re not. So there’s no point moanin’ and groanin’ about what I did and didn’t do.” He hopped off the stool, still holding the model bridge. “So if I’m not gonna bellyache over somethin’ that could get me and Lydia killed in about a year then you shouldn’t be worrying your little head over somethin’ that already killed you ten years ago.”

With that, Betelgeuse reared back and dropped the model bridge into his mouth, and Barbara stared at him as he chewed it slowly, deliberately.

“I…I guess you’re right,” Barbara murmured, looking back at the model town.

“Yeah, I _am_ right.” After swallowing the hunk of painted wood, Betelgeuse shoved his hands in his pockets. “Listen, Bobbie. You’re a sweet gal, and my hand to God, you couldn’t do wrong in my eyes.”

“Not even the sandworm thing?” Barbara asked as she wiped her red nose.

He gave her a yellowed yet strangely friendly grin as he sunk through the floorboards and out of the attic. “Not even the sandworm thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the latest chapter of CMN! I had a lot of fun scratching the surface of Betelgeuse's past and taking a deeper look into Barbara's character. Please comment and tell me what you thought!


	13. A Reunion to Remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised you fake/pretend relationship from the beginning, and now this is the chapter ya'll have been waiting for! Hope you enjoy!

Luckily, Lydia’s condition improved rapidly, which, of course, incited Betelgeuse to crow about how it was all his doing with the lemons, and not with the “funky orange juice” that her parents were making her drink. Lydia only frowned at him as she grimaced and choked down the cheaply orange-flavored flu medicine. Barbara also managed to save Lydia’s poor stomach by convincing Beetlejuice that three lemons was enough to hold Lydia over for a week or so.

After her fever broke, she was allowed to come out of her make-shift quarantining in her room and walk around as her nose began to unstuff and her throat began to heal from its former scratchiness. Despite this, she was still sore everywhere, so she contented herself to watch her favorite black and white monster movies while both sets of her parents milled around her.

“What are you watching, Lydia?” Adam asked, leaning over the back of the couch to peer at the TV screen as it showed a giant disembodied tongue demolishing a building.

Lydia chuckled at his bewildered expression. “Come on, Adam, it’s only my favorite movie of all time: The Monster Tongue that Ate Chicago.”

“Gotta love that book.”

Lydia blinked in surprise and touched her throat. She was _just_ about to say that, and yet it came out in a voice that was not her own. “What?”

At that moment, Betelgeuse appeared seated in midair with his legs folded up like a pretzel. “The book? C’mon, you can’t love the Monster Tongue that Ate Chicago if you haven’t read the book!”

“I _have_ read the book, thank you,” Lydia replied. “And while most book adaptation movies aren’t that great, I think they did a pretty good job with this one!”

“Hmph…” The ghost rolled his eyes. “They gave it a ‘happy ending’—” he said the words with contempt and air quotes. “In the book, they tongue devoured all the main characters and destroyed the city completely.”

Lydia only smiled. “Well, maybe people need a happy ending every once in a while.”

“Lydia,” Charles called, coming in the front door. “You have a letter.”

Lydia choked a laugh and paused her movie. “It’s probably just another college letter I’m going to ignore. Let me see it.”

Her father handed it over, and Lydia’s smirk immediately dropped when she didn’t see a university logo on the front of the envelope.

“What is it?” Adam asked as he and Charles crowded her shoulders. Betelgeuse was looking at the paused image of the monster tongue, uninterested in the letter.

Tearing open the envelope, Lydia struggled to pull out the letter for a moment before opening it. “You are formally invited to…” her pale face paled further, and her fingers clenched the letter so hard it crinkled, “to Miss Shannon’s School for Girls high school reunion.”

This immediately caught the attention of Delia and Barbara in the dining room, and the former fluttered in with the latter trailing behind. “Ooh, Lydia, a reunion! You have to go!”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “I thought reunions were for…you know…old people.”

“Oh, poo. When is it?”

“Saturday,” Lydia murmured, her dark eyes lazily scanning the page.

Giggling, Delia skipped towards the stairs. “Saturday, then! I’ll put it on my calendar. This is so exciting!”

As the rest of her parents dispersed, Lydia sighed and grumbled, “Yeah…exciting…” Reading the letter once more, her eyes paused at the bottom of the page; her throat felt tighter than it had when she was sick, and, all of a sudden, she wished she was sick again. “No…no, no, no…”

Betelgeuse hit play on the remote to resume the movie. “Somethin’ the matter?” he murmured, looking just as disinterested as before.

Lydia swallowed to try to get rid of the feeling in her throat. This couldn’t be happening! She lost! She lost a bet she had thought she could forget about when she graduated. There, at the bottom of the page, were the words, “Sincerely, Claire and Jonathan Brewster.”

“Of _course_ she would have him take her last name,” Lydia grumbled.

This caught the poltergeist’s attention, and he tore his eyes away from the scene of the main protagonist’s girlfriend being absorbed into the monster tongue to look at her. “What is it?”

“Just…some stupid bet I made while I was in high school…”

“A bet?!” Betelgeuse whipped around and jolted into her personal space. “I love bets! What kind? Does it involve a blood pact? Or selling your soul to a supernatural force of some kind? Come on, Lyds, details!”

She pushed his face away. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just…this really dumb bet I made with his girl who I guess I was rivals with? We were complete opposites, so I don’t know if it would really count as a true rivalry.”

“What was the bet?” he asked, a single eyebrow raised.

“She started it,” Lydia began to defend herself, but as he continued to look at her incredulously, she sighed and continued, “She was…really pretty. And she always said I wasn’t. So on graduation day, she made a bet with me that she’d get married before I would. And I agreed.”

“Ha!” Betelgeuse snorted and shook his head. “Well, you came pretty dang close on that one! So what’s the price of losing?”

Lydia rubbed her arms. “Dignity, I guess? I hated losing anything against Claire Brewster because I…she…she just makes me feel really dumb and…” Sighing, Lydia shook herself and smoothed her messy hair. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll go to this stupid high school reunion, see some of my old friends, and avoid Claire like the plague. It’ll be fine.”

A smirk crossed Betelgeuse’s features. “Want some tips? I _literally_ avoided the plague.”

Although she didn’t want to admit it, Lydia let out a short laugh as she grabbed the remote and hit play. “I might take you up on that.”

To her dismay, Lydia found herself both perfectly healthy on the day of the reunion and badgered by her stepmother as she tried to get ready.

“You should wear the school colors! Ooh, or something bright to show how you’ve blossomed!” Turning around with a yellow dress that certainly didn’t come out of Lydia’s closet, Delia frowned deeply when she caught a glimpse of Lydia standing in front of the mirror. “Is _that_ what you’re wearing?” she whined, looking up and down at Lydia’s black slacks, black peplum shirt, and black shoes.

“Is there something wrong with that?” Lydia demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

Delia sighed as she hung up the yellow dress in Lydia’s closet, still hopeful that she would someday wear it. “Would it kill you to put color into your wardrobe?”

“Okay, fine, how’s this?” Lydia walked into her small closet and shut the door, and, after a moment of rustling and banging around, reemerged wearing a pair of high-waisted jeans cuffed on the ends.

However, this only made it worse. “Lydia!” Delia squealed. “Why do you still have those in your closet? Those are…” she grimaced a little and whispered, “so 1983…”

“You wanted color in my outfit,” Lydia scoffed as she laced a black, studded belt through the thick belt loops of her jeans. “You got color in my outfit. Now I would advise you to stop complaining before I decide to go to the reunion in that horrible thing.” She pointed at the mountain of red lace and tulle tucked away in the furthest, darkest corner of her closet.

Delia only sighed. “Alright, fine. I guess you can go in that. But maybe choose another color for your makeup!”

Lydia ushered her out of her room. “Will do, Delia, thanks!”

As soon as she shut the door, Lydia sighed and hurried to her vanity. “I’ll give you color…” she murmured, pulling out the most eyepopping shade of blood red lipstick she owned and her black eyeshadow.

As she applied the lipstick, Lydia blinked twice and took a closer look at her reflection. _No, that couldn’t be right._ She ran her tongue over her greenish teeth before scowling. “Betelgeuse, out of my mirror.”

Her reflection morphed into the pouting poltergeist. “Party pooper. Speaking of parties…” his eyes drifted over her outfit and grew as wide as saucers. “Holy smokes!”

“What?” Lydia asked, unamused. If he said anything about changing again, she would reach through the mirror and slap him silly.

“Whoa! Babes! You wear _pants_?!”

At this, Lydia snorted a little with laughter. “Wow, what a surprise. Lydia Deetz can wear pants. Astonishing.” She smiled a little at his shocked expression. “Come on, you’ve seen me in a swimsuit. Don’t tell me you’re getting turned on by my mom jeans.” Immediately, she clapped a hand over her mouth, not even worrying about how it would smudge her lipstick. What did she just say? What did she just invite him to say or, heaven forbid, do?

However, Lydia felt herself breathe a sigh of relief, when he only grumbled and turned his eyes away. As she wiped off the smudged lipstick of her hand and mouth, Lydia raised an eyebrow at him as he watched her mouth, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“What?” she snapped, quickly reapplying the deep red color to her pale lips.

He scratched at his stubbled chin before inspecting the mold caught in his long nails. “Mm, nothin’. Have you thought about the weddin’ any?”

“I’ve been trying to _not_ think about it. Why, have you?”

“Ah, well,” he rested his elbows on the reflection next to her makeup bag sitting on the vanity, “’S not like it’s _important_ or anything. Y’know, vows and ceremonies, who needs it all, right?” He grinned at her, showing all of his nasty green-yellow teeth in a way that seemed more strained than intimidating.

“So what are you trying to tell me?” Lydia asked. She was trying her best to not think about everything he was suggesting, but her hands were beginning to shake as she carefully began to work on her smoky eyeshadow.

“Well, what does a wedding ceremony usually have?”

Lydia’s eyes drifted almost unwillingly towards her closet where the red monstrosity was hiding. “A wedding dress?”

“Other than that.”

“Guests?”

The poltergeist rolled his eyes. “Think about the actual _ceremony_ , not the people in it.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to get me to say!” Lydia argued back, anger boiling in her stomach. Why couldn’t he ever just be straightforward? “Vows, exchange of rings, is that it?”

“Ehh, close?” He was tapping his fingernails on the vanity now, which only made Lydia’s annoyance swell. “What happens at the end of it all, though?”

“Uhm…” Lydia quieted down. What else was there? She had gone to her only two friends’ weddings. It should be obvious, shouldn’t it? “Oh, I got it!” she suddenly exclaimed, too relieved to have finally figured it out to realize what she was saying. “A kiss!”

Betelgeuse’s expression in her reflection sobered her. His fingernails were still tapping like rain on a tin roof, and she could see his jaw ticking. Almost unconsciously, her eyes turned to his breathless purplish lips, which were drawn together awkwardly.

“Oh…” She set her makeup down and stood up, moving away from her vanity.

Now that she was further away, Betelgeuse leaned closer to the glass. “You ever kissed a boy before?”

“That’s none of your business,” Lydia murmured, even though she knew the answer: she hadn’t. She and Vincent had dated for two years and never kissed because neither one of them could work up the nerve. After a moment's silence as she gathered her purse, Lydia quietly added, “Have you?”

“Uh, thanks, but I’m pretty sure I’m a flaming heterosexual.”

Lydia shook her head. “No, no, I mean…have you ever kissed a girl? And not like how you kissed Barbara. Someone you really liked.”

Betelgeuse had begun to open his trap as soon as the question was stated, but the specifics of it caught him off guard. “Uh…well…” He scratched the back of his neck. “That’s a tough question. Ghosts don’t really _do_ invested relationships unless they were already in one before they died, you know? And sometimes they don’t even stick together after death. Death do us part, and all that. They’d have to go to all the trouble of getting remarried in the Neitherworld. Most ghosts don’t wanna put up with that.” Lydia bit her lip as he shrugged and added, “I mean, hey, we’re dead, so why not experiment, amiright?”

“So when I die…” Lydia began.

“You’ll still be mine.” Betelgeuse leaned forward so his forehead was almost touching the glass. “I’m already dead. So death do us part wouldn’t really apply to us, now would it?”

Sighing, Lydia turned away and gazed out the window. “That’s what I thought…”

As silence fell over the pair, Lydia twisted the jade ring around her finger until it began to turn red, and Betelgeuse cleared his throat and yanked up his left sleeve, revealing the myriad of watches all ticking at different times.

“What time was that stupid reunion or whatever?”

“At five.”

Betelgeuse glanced at his other wrist, which only bore no watches but a single dark freckle right in the middle of his wrist. “So that’s in, what? Thirty minutes?”

“It takes me twenty to drive over.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, and Lydia gazed back at his half-lidded stare. “So you got everythin’ you need? Purse, lipstick, phone…” he glanced around and added hopefully, “spell book containing the souls of the damned?”

“Tch,” Lydia smiled and shook her head as she walked over. “I’m pretty sure Delia would have my head if I didn’t have everything ready by now.” Tapping her chin with a black-painted nail, Lydia murmured, “Though there is one thing I’m missing…”

Betelgeuse lit a cigarette. “And that is?”

“You.”

“Me?!” he wheezed as a pale, dead hand shot to his equally dead heart. Quickly, he popped the cigarette between his smirking lips and leaned forward even more so the smoke fogged the glass. “Don’t get me wrong, Lyddie, I’ll go anywhere you want me to go—don’t really have a choice—but I smell somethin’ _treacherous_ goin’ on.”

“Think less treacherous, and more…” Shrugging coyly, Lydia finished with a grin just as devious as his, “artful.”

“Eh?”

“Shrewd. Tricky.”

“Works for me. Gimme outta here!”

She turned on her heel, making the pleats of her peplum swirl like a whirlpool. “Betelgeuse…Betelgeuse…well, actually…”

His jaundiced eyes rolled so far both his pupil and iris disappeared in the back of his head. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Lydia rested her hands on her hips. “Look, I just figured you should know that I have a _plan_ , alright? And it would probably work better if you stayed here until I call you.”

“ _C’est la vie_. Er…sorta,” Betelgeuse muttered while adjusting the cigarette between his lips. “Whatcha got?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that bet that I made with Claire, and I’ve realized there’s no way that I’ll be able to avoid her. My class was pretty small, and she’s the host of the reunion. But if I have a fiancé, so what if she’s already married?”

“That’s not technically a lie,” Betelgeuse replied, smoke blowing out of his nose.

“Nope. And it’ll ruffle her feathers even more if we tell her you proposed before she even met her husband.”

At this, Betelgeuse’s eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. “I proposed when you were fourteen!”

“She won’t know that,” Lydia giggled, bringing a sly grin to Betelgeuse’s own lips. “So,” she continued before he could reply, “I’m going to go to the reunion first and get my feet wet, and when Claire shows up to laugh about how I lost our bet—and she will—you come and crash the party.”

“I get to crash a party?!”

Lydia flinched towards the mirror, her hands waving in a quelling motion. “Not too much, okay? Remember my rules: no destroying or killing anything. Just…more or less rubbing our engagement in Claire’s face at every possible moment.”

His chest heaved with a deep, smoky sigh. “Alright,” he said in a mockingly haughty British accent, “I’ll restrain myself for you, my dear.”

At that moment, Delia’s voice rang from downstairs, “Lyyyydia! It’s time!”

Lydia grabbed her dark purple purse off the bed and murmured, “I’d better go. See you there.”

“Buh-bye, babes,” Betelgeuse snickers, watching her walk out with a cocked eyebrow. Who knew his little fiancé was such a schemer? This might not be too bad after all.

Lydia chuckled as she thundered downstairs, waved goodbye to her family, and hopped into her car to drive to the school. Already, Lydia could picture Claire’s mouth with its overdrawn lipstick gaping open in a perfect O when she saw the blond, broad-shouldered Betelgeuse at her side. Whatever feeling Betelgeuse got whenever he gave her that devious grin, Lydia’s heart was stewing in it. Who knew this could be so much fun? She had already been planning to tell Claire that she was engaged or, heck, married even, and prove it with her huge wedding ring, but to have Betelgeuse there, too? Even better. If anyone could push every single one of Claire’s buttons, it was him.

Lydia sped on her way to the school, not getting pulled over by some miracle, and when she arrived and entered the old gymnasium, the excited shouts of her two best friends distracted her from the wave of nauseating nostalgia.

“Lydia!”

She giggled a little and embraced her two friends. “Bertha, Prudence!” Taking a step back to look at her friends, Lydia smiled, glancing at their diamond wedding rings and Bertha’s son with her husband near the tables. “It’s been too long. How have you been?”

Secretly, Lydia was glad her friends were busying her with humdrum conversation so perhaps Claire wouldn’t butt in immediately. But with conversation came other pesky questions that didn’t have to do with her impending marriage.

“What happened to your arm Lydia?” her friends asked in unison, and Lydia instinctively scratched under her cast. In all honesty, she had almost forgotten it was there.

“Oh, um...bike accident,” Lydia smiled in a way that told her friends to change the subject.

“So have you decided if you’re going to go to school or not?” Prudence asked. She, to no one’s surprise, went to college for her bachelors and was currently enrolled for her masters in record time.

“U-Uh…” Lydia scratched the back of her neck. “Well, I’m making a decent amount of money right now from photography… So I don’t really see a need to go right now.”

Bertha rested a hand on her arm. “That’s fine, but what else has changed since we left Winter River?” She grinned, showing off her buck teeth, though they certainly weren’t as bad as they were before she had braces. “Have you found anyone special?”

Clearing her throat, Lydia blushed. Special was one way to put it. “Well…”

Lydia released her left hand that she had been clutching to her chest with her other, revealing the jade ring that she had always managed to hide from them somehow. It had come close before, and they might have seen glimpses it, but now it was being revealed it it’s full, dark glory. To her relief, neither one of her friends recognized it as they squealed over it, flapping their hands excitedly.

“Lydia! I knew it! I knew it would happen!” Bertha cheered. Prudence bounced up and down, upsetting her coke bottle glasses.

“ _ What _ would happen?”

Lydia’s glee at her friends’ reactions was immediately crushed like a bug against a windshield as she saw the familiar bleach blonde head of hair, crystal blue eyes, and overly-perky pixie nose of Claire Brewster coming her way. She also had the traditional wedding ring, but it is much more extravagant than Prudence’s and Bertha’s, delicately twisting and curving, shining with gold, and absolutely studded with diamonds.

Prudence and Bertha swallowed nervously as they stared with wide eyes as their high school bully. “O-Oh, um… Lydia’s engaged now,” Bertha answered for her.

Claire sniffed and looked at Lydia’s ring in disdain. “Well, that’s got to be the most pathetic ring I’ve ever seen! It doesn’t even have a diamond.” She brought her left hand up, seemingly to touch her face, but Lydia simply glared at the shimmering diamonds.

“You of all people should know I don’t care for traditional things,” Lydia responded, doing her best to remain calm as she twisted her own ring. “Besides, I think jade rings are gorgeous, thank you very much, Claire.” 

Still apparently miffed about not being able to flaunt any victory in Lydia’s face, Claire tossed her blonde curls and demanded, “Well, then where is your husband-fiancé or whatever? If he’s even real.” This brought out a titter from Claire and no one else.

Swallowing Lydia glanced at the entrance to the party. “W-Well…he’s on his way here from work.”

“Sure. _Work_.”

Despite herself, Lydia felt the rage boiling in her stomach, and she quickly pulled out her phone. “How about I call him to make sure he’s on his way?” Quickly, she walked away from the three other women with her phone to her ear, though it was still turned off. “Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse…” she whispered into the receiver, deviousness rearing its head in her heart.

Despite the magic B-words being said, the door did not burst open, no crashing or cackling was heard, and no physical manifestation of her ghost appeared in the doorway. Her face burning, Lydia walked back to her friends and Claire before murmuring, “He should be here soon.”

Claire only gave a spiteful chuckle while Bertha and Prudence nodded, glancing nervously at each other.

After ten minutes, Lydia began to give up, and she told her two friends they should go ahead and get food without her fiancé. They served themselves from the buffet of miniature sausages, fruit and veggie platters, and cookies before sitting down at one of the round tables.

All previous conversation had been killed, brutally murdered, after Claire’s intrusion despite the fact Claire was now sitting by her doting husband a few tables away. Only a few tables away, Lydia noticed, and she felt Claire’s cold blue glances as she resigned herself from talking by quickly stuffing grapes into her mouth. Bertha and Prudence’s sympathetic gazes weren’t helping, either. They, too, were getting the notion that Lydia’s fiancé was not going to show.

A blast of shockingly cold air blew in without warning as the door swung open, and someone new stepped into the room. All three members of Lydia’s table turned to look, and Lydia sighed deeply in relief. There in the doorway stood her husband-to-be looking a little more human than usual. Yes, his eyes were still sunken, his skin was still so pale it looked like he had been shoved in a freezer, and his smile was a rictus grin, but he was no longer moldy, shadowy-eyed, and ghostly white. Silently, Lydia thanked him for not showing up in Charles’s hand-me-downs, though the lack of his trademark stripes disturbed her until he fully entered the room, and she could see the thin white pinstripes traveling down his black pants. His magenta shirt was almost obnoxiously bright as it forced people to glance over at him wondering what this smorgasbord of a man was up to as he came in. Despite not being clearly the Ghost with the Most, he was still commanding the room.

Quickly, Lydia stood and rushed over to him. She wanted to grab him by the tie and yank him down for a lecture, but, unfortunately, he wasn’t wearing one, so his collar had to do.

“What were you thinking?!” she hissed. “You’re late!”

He only smiled and leaned closer to her, whispering to her with his freezing lips brushing against her ear, “I hate to break this to you, babes, but I’ve been late for some time.” Just as suddenly as he had done so, he leaned back, straightened his bent collar, and added with a wink, “And a lovely funeral it was.”

Lydia rubbed her chilled ear and rolled her eyes, trying not to look as flustered as she was. “Well—I—just come on. You’ve embarrassed me enough.”

Leading him by the arm, Lydia nearly had to drag him as they approached Bertha and Prudence. The apprehensive look on Betelgeuse’s face was painfully obvious.

“Bertha, Prudence, this is my fiancé, Ryan. Ryan, Bertha and Prudence.”

There was a short, awkward exchange of hellos, and Lydia cast a glance back at Claire, who was openly staring now. Snickering internally, Lydia stroked Betelgeuse’s bicep on the arm she was hanging onto like a classic horror movie female lead, pouted up at him, and fluttered her lashes, “Ryan…”

He grinned at her, and, again, Lydia was treated with seeing him in a more human state. His teeth were still far from straight, but they were no longer greenish-yellow in tint. “Yes, snookums?”

Her nails dug into his arm a little as she ground her teeth. Of all the nicknames he could have chosen… “There’s someone else I wanna introduce you to.”

Luckily, Claire was already there, saving Lydia and Betelgeuse the walk over. She appraised Betelgeuse, her crystal eyes traveling up and down Betelgeuse’s form. She analyzed everything, his build, clothing, hygienics. Lydia grimaced. Claire’s expression was similar to one picking out a prized cow to be slaughtered. If it had been anyone else but Betelgeuse, they might have wilted under Claire’s critical eye, but Betelgeuse stood steadfast, perhaps even confidently.

“Well he’s certainly…” Claire’s glare rested on Betelgeuse’s gut, but he didn’t shrink away. “He’s certainly something.” Finally rerouting back to formality, she stuck out her right hand. “Claire Brewster. I organized this event, Mr.…?”

“Shaggoth,” he replied with a grin as he took her hand and shook it. “Ryan Shaggoth.”

Lydia blinked in surprise. She hadn’t even considered a last name that she would have to take on. _Shaggoth_?

However, Claire was interested in other things as a sly smirk crept across her bubblegum pink lips. “For a married man, you don’t seem to be too fond of jewelry, are you, Mr. Shaggoth?”

“Me and my snap pea are just engaged.”

His smile was anything but friendly, and Lydia felt a shiver down her spine as Betelgeuse stared at Claire with eyes that were seeing her body dumped somewhere in a ditch and her ghost abandoned. Claire, apparently, didn’t feel the same.

“So what does that have to do with anything?” she asked skeptically.

“Mrs. Brewster,” Betelgeuse replied, clucking his tongue. “I’m surprised at you! Everyone knows that only the lady wears the engagement ring, not the fella.” He gave Lydia’s casted hand a squeeze that made her jump. “It’s a way of…” he sighed as his gray eyes rolled up towards the ceiling as he searched for the right words, “marking certain _contracts_ , isn’t it?”

At this, Bertha and Prudence gave “Ryan” an uneasy glance, and Lydia found herself restraining herself from elbowing him in the stomach.

“Why don’t you grab some food,” Lydia said quickly, shoving Betelgeuse in the direction of the buffet line, “and then you can come sit with me and my friends, okay?”

“Of course, buttercup.” He patted her head dotingly before sauntering off towards the food.

Lydia groaned a little and ushered her friends back to her table. “Don’t worry about him, guys, he just likes embarrassing me. A  _ lot _ .”

“He’s, um…” Prudence glanced over at the line where Betelgeuse was inspecting the vegetables with disgust, “nice?”

“He’s a lot better when you get to know him, I swear,” Lydia assured her, kicking herself mentally as she recalled Adam’s words. “He’s like, um…”

“Rat poison,” came the gravelly voice behind her. Lydia jumped and glanced back where she saw Betelgeuse before he plopped down beside her.

“I was going to say black licorice, but…”

“No,” Betelgeuse replied, looking at her with raised eyebrows as he crammed as many sausages in his mouth as he could. “I’m like rat poison.”

“You’re such a kidder!” Lydia laughed nervously, punching his arm and making him choke for a moment.

“So, um…” Prudence glanced at Betelgeuse with wide eyes, almost too afraid to ask him any questions. “What…what do you do for work, Mr. Shaggoth?”

Thankfully, Betelgeuse decided to swallow before answering her. “Ryan, please,” he said, leaning back casually in his chair so it tipped back on its back two legs. If he wasn’t busy embarrassing her, Lydia would have admired his acting skills. She would have been sweating bullets in his position. “I do work around Winter River and surrounding towns.” A smirk played on his pale lips as he continued, “I’m an exorcist.”

“An exorcist?”

“That’s right, Pru. You know, driving out ghosts and demons and the like.”

Bertha and Prudence glanced at each other, and Lydia felt a wave of nervousness fall over her for just a moment before they burst into laughter. As they giggled, it was Betelgeuse and Lydia’s turn to share a confused look. Finally, once their laughing spell was over, Bertha wiped her eyes and replied, “Well, you certainly fit Lydia’s type then!”

“What type?” Lydia asked.

“You know,” Prudence giggled. “Dark, handsome, likes unusual things.”

Bertha nodded in agreement and added before Lydia could get a word in. “Yeah, Vincent was two of those things, and Ryan is…well…at least one of those things.”

Immediately, Lydia flushed as Betelgeuse glanced at her with a frown. “Is…is Vincent here?” she asked.

“I think so?” Prudence said, craning her neck to look around the room. “I’m sure he’s around here somewhere. You two should really catch up.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, Lyds my sweet, but I’d rather stay here,” Betelgeuse piped up.

Lydia frowned as she glanced from Betelgeuse to Prudence and Bertha. No, she had to prove that she wasn’t going to be pushed around. They had already noticed her broken wrist. She didn’t want them to get the wrong—or, in this case—the almost right impression.

“Well, I’m going to talk to Vincent, and you can stay here,” she replied, standing up and walking off into the crowd of circular tables.

“Hmph.” Betelgeuse pouted at her before stealing the two chocolate cookies off her plate and shoving one into his mouth with as much spite as he could muster. With Lydia now gone and his fun of embarrassing her stripped away, he fell silent as he devoured her cookies and the rest of his own food.

Unfortunately for the three remaining members of the table, Lydia’s open seat left room for an intruder, and the last person Betelgeuse wanted to have the displeasure of meeting again sat down: Claire Brewster.

“So, Ryan,” she played with the table cloth with her long nails, “How much do you make a year?”

Betelgeuse choked on one of Lydia’s grapes and coughed for so long Bertha and Prudence were beginning to look worried. When he finally regained himself, he smoothed his slicked back blond hair and replied, “Bout 36k.”

At this, Claire snorted and collapsed into giggles, and Betelgeuse narrowed his eyes at her. This snot was worse than Lydia described her to be. If he had known, he might have not showed up at all rather than be fashionably late.

“And what do you do?”

“Exorcism.”

“Exorcism?” she asked skeptically. “So you’re a priest?”

“Nope,” he said, popping the p. “Just an exorcist.” 

Again, Claire only laughed spitefully. “No wonder Lydia never got out of this silly little town! She’s a ‘photographer’ or whatever, and she’s marrying an— _ pshaw _ —exorcist? Come on!”

“That’s not very nice, Claire,” Prudence murmured.

“Oh, what do you know? You’re smart, so you’re gonna make, what, six figs a year? Lydia and Ryan are gonna be picking at your scraps.”

“And what do… _ you _ …do?” Betelgeuse asked, digging his long nails into his palms to keep himself from going to the Neitherworld and dragging this high-nosed gold digger down with him. Restraint was something he usually wasn’t forced to practice.

“Oh, nothing,” Claire cooed as Betelgeuse shoved more food into his mouth to keep himself from screaming profanities. “But my husband’s a lawyer, so he makes—dear Lord, man, slow down, or you’re going to gain even more weight!”

Bertha and Prudence pursed their lips and pretended to distract themselves with their phones, hair, or food, as Betelgeuse stared up at Claire from his hunched over position, barbeque sauce dripping down his chin. “S’cuse me?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.

“I’m just saying.” Claire inspected her pink nails nonchalantly. “If you ever want to get to the better parts of marriage with Lydia, I suggest you lose a few pounds and lay off the drinking. It shows.”

Still glaring up at her, Betelgeuse spat his unswallowed food back onto his plate and straightened up. “Well, if I were you,” he snapped back. “I would grab my rhinoplasted nose and yank it back down towards the floor. Only your husband likes looking up there..” With that, he forked the soggy bolus of sausage and fruit on his plate and shoveled it back into his mouth.

Meanwhile, Lydia was making her way around the tables trying to see if Vincent was anywhere among the smaller groups of men. Finally, she saw his lean, dark-haired form and smiled. “Vincent!”

“Lydia?” He turned and chuckled, absentmindedly swirling the punch in his cup. “Well, this is familiar. Strange how we keep bumping into each other like this.”

Smiling, Lydia leaned against an empty chair and shrugged. “Strange and unusual.”

“You know,” Vincent continued, smiling a little wider now. “We should really stop bumping into each other—I-I mean… No, that came out wrong, um… What I mean is, we should intentionally bump into each other. Like set something up. There’s this new coffee shop not too far from your house. We should go.”

Lydia blinked in surprise. While he was still her awkward, fumbling Vinny, his forwardness surprised her. It took him almost an entire year after he met her to finally ask her out, and when he did, Lydia didn’t know it was a date until he clarified on the day of.

“O-Oh, well, I mean…” Instinctively, she glanced back at Betelgeuse but frowned.  _ Confidence, Lydia, confidence! _

“I’d love to, Vincent,” Lydia smiled. “I’ll just have to check with—”

“You’re fiancé?”

Lydia bit her lip so hard that she was pretty sure it was bleeding, though the blood blended in well with her lipstick. Turning, she saw a well-dressed man with slicked back brown hair, but the way his nose was positioned so he was looking down at her gave her a clue on who this was.

“Jonathan Brewster, I presume?” Lydia said, grimacing. Of course Claire told him about Betelgeuse—er, Ryan.

“Yes, Miss Lydia Deetz—soon to be Shaggoth.”

“Lydia, what is the guy talking about?” Vincent looked worried, though it was clear he wasn’t sure who he should direct his skepticism towards.

“Come on,” Lydia dragged Vincent away to another table. “Don’t listen to him—the Brewsters have no idea what they’re talking about.”

“I hope not,” Vincent replied, rubbing his arms as his dark eyes scanned the room. “Is Ryan here?”

Fear fluttered in Lydia’s chest, and she twisted her ring. “Who, Ryan? Uh…yeah, he’s here. B-But that’s only because he promised he’d drive me.” Snickering a little, she rolled her eyes and added, “Besides, he was promised that he could crash a party and get some food in one fell swoop. If he passed on something like that, I would think that he’d been possessed.”

“I think  _ anyone _ would be crazy—er, possessed—if they passed on something like that!”

They laughed, Lydia’s hand resting on his arm as the pair leaned towards each other as they tried to make themselves stop giggling.

Finally, Vincent reduced himself to just a smile and added, “Where were you guys sitting? I mean to talk to him a little when I first met him, but…um…” His easy smile faded as he scratched his neck nervously.

“Ah, uh, well…” Lydia cleared her throat, equally nervous as she hunched up and scuffed her shoes on the gym floor. She didn’t even want to imagine how Betelgeuse would interact with Vincent if he was misbehaving around her friends. Plus, he didn’t exactly know about the whole ‘keeping their engagement a secret around Vincent’ and ‘Vincent used to be her boyfriend’ thing. “Ryan and I will actually have to go soon. We have a photoshoot at, uh…” she glanced at her watch. “Uh…seven! Yeah, seven. And since it’s already six thirty, we should probably be heading out soon. Heh.”

Blinking in surprise, Vincent’s face fell a little. “Oh…um, that’s okay. Next time, then?”

“Yeah…next time,” Lydia mumbled.

Before she could turn to head back to her table, Vincent caught her uninjured hand and said quickly, “We should still get coffee, though—sometime later, of course.”

Lydia stared at his hopeful face for a moment before replying with indistinguishable emotion, “Sure, when?”

His dark brown eyes swam around with thought for a moment before returning to Lydia’s. “How about next Saturday?”

_ Next Saturday. _ Lydia chewed her lip. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

Clearing his throat, Vincent released her hand and smiled. “Well… I’ll see you then.”

With a short nod, Lydia walked back towards the tables, silently mourning the loss of Vincent’s hand in her own. The first time they held hands, they were watching a horror movie, and Lydia held his hand so he wouldn’t be too frightened during one of the gorier sequences.

“Isn’t that your third plate?”

“Isn’t that your third choice for a husband?”

Instantly, Lydia snapped out of the idyllic high school romance scenes with Vincent to look at the grim faces of her past and future glaring at one another, Claire with horrified disgust and Betelgeuse with gleeful vengeance.

“Ryan,” Lydia said, crossing her arms, “I hope you’ve been behaving.”

“Me? Behave? Always, my moonflower,” he grinned. Despite his easygoing expression, Lydia watched in surprise as he grabbed a plastic fork off his empty plate and bent it until it snapped into two jagged pieces.

As he eyed Claire like he wanted to jab the two halves of the fork into her eye sockets, Lydia cleared her throat and replied, “Well, good, but we’d better be going now.”

He leapt to his feet, catching Lydia off-guard once again. “I thought you’d never say that, so good to meet you both, but me and Lyds have gotta run, see ya!” he said to Bertha and Prudence all in one breath before dragging Lydia out of the gym as she protested.

“What’s gotten into you?” Lydia demanded when he finally released her in the parking lot.

“What’s gotten into me?! You should be more worried about what was gonna come outta me if you didn’t get me away from that prissy little snotrag!”

Steam blew out of his nose as Lydia watched him fume in shock. “You mean…Claire got under  _ your _ skin? I thought that it would be the other way around!”

They loaded into Lydia’s car, Betelgeuse with the seat leaned back and his boots thrown up on the dashboard. “Lyds, I’m the Ghost with the Most. I can handle anything and anybody. But nothing made me itch in all the wrong places more than that alternate-universe Elle Woods!”

Snorting, Lydia pulled out onto the road. “If she had married Warner, maybe.” She glanced over at him while he relaxed in the passenger’s seat with a slight smile on his face and felt her heart sink. “But I’m sure you liked her in other ways.”

“Why would I like  _ her _ ?” His lip curled into almost a snarl, revealing his blackened gums as his human disguise began to fade.

“Well…she’s nice to look at, I imagine…” Lydia murmured. She kept her eyes on the road so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

For a moment, Lydia thought he wasn’t going to respond. That is, until she heard it. It started off barely audible until it grew so loud it was almost deafening in her small car: Betelgeuse’s signature cackle, crueler and more boisterous than usual.

“You think I thought that little blonde rat was pretty? You’ve got me  _ all _ wrong, babes. I like to choose from all the cards, but I still have my favorite suits.”

“And that is?” Lydia asked, daring to glance over at him where he was lying with his hands folded over his chest.

“Black diamonds.” He was grinning at her. “Eternal, flawless, and unchanging.”

“Yeah, Mr. Symbolism? Well, how about jade stones?”

Immediately, he caught on as his eyes shifted to the ring on her left hand resting on the steering wheel. Unlike Vincent, Betelgeuse was not so adorably clueless and awkward. “Well, I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure jade represents purity, justice, and wisdom.”

Lydia’s eyes flickered over the road. Purity was an obvious one: she was young and a virgin, the epitomes of purity. However, justice and wisdom were lost on her.

“So…you didn’t think Claire was attractive?” Lydia asked incredulously. “You’re crazy!”

She was met with a eyeroll from Betelgeuse. “Look, I know that its different nowadays, and I branch out—a lot—but I still have my good ole fashioned medieval standards!”

Lydia winced. “Didn’t women shave back their hairlines and lighten their hair with sheep’s urine?” She gave his light blond hair an uneasy glance.

“I was born this way, don’t worry ‘bout that,” he murmured as he pulled down his feet and his seat back up. “And I didn’t appreciate  _ all  _ the medieval practices. Most of that stuff lands you dead! Lucky for you, you already have most of it. Claire…not so much.”

A fire went off behind Lydia’s cheeks. “What do you mean?”

“Look, nowadays women are all about being hourglasses or some crap. Nu-uh.  _ Nu-uh _ . That won’t do it for me.” He glanced over at her with a grin to see if she was still listening. She was. “What does it for me are those little pear-shaped ladies with the sloping shoulders—ooh, yeah, baby! That’s the stuff! Plus wider hips means having more kids or whatever. It was more important back then than it is now.”

Lydia giggled, perhaps a little nervously, at his gruntled enthusiasm. “And? I’m sure there’s more.”

“Well, most people these days like to be tanner, right? Nope. That’s not what we like. If you’re tan, you’re poor, a serf on some nobleman’s estate. You can’t afford to stay out of the sun. If you’re pale, you’re automatically labeled as rich. Not that that really matters to me anymore now that I’m dead.” He snorted and shook his head. “I just kinda like how it looks.”

“So basically modern styles aren’t really ‘doing it for ya’?” Lydia snickered.

He cocked his head and shrugged, still wearing that playful grin. “Guess not.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Am I? What do you like, then, Miss Deetz, since your friends are positive you have a ‘ _ type’ _ ,” he replied in a haughty manner, his question making Lydia blush.

“I dunno…” she mumbled, unsure on what to say. This wasn’t exactly a conversation one would imagine occurring outside of an all-girl sleepover. “I…I kind of like guys who aren’t the picture of masculinity.”

“Mm-hmm?” He was grinning again.

“Sweet, caring, gentle…”

“Mm-hmm.” This time, he sounded less convinced.

“With a love for the strange and unusual, of course.”

He tapped his nails against the window as Lydia pulled up into the driveway. “Well, you got that goin’ for ya.”

Lydia chuckled a little as she freed herself from the seatbelt and grabbed her purse. “Thanks for putting up with Claire for me. If you hadn’t come, she probably would have been on my back the whole time.”

As she stepped out of the car, she looked up to see him sitting on top of the roof of the car and was forced to remember he was not just another man. That eerie, mischievous grin was on his face. “She might’ve been annoying, but I still got my jabs in. I’d do it again if ya wanted me to.”

With that, he disappeared, and Lydia walked back inside with a sigh. Quickly passing her parents so they—mainly Delia—wouldn’t interrogate her about the reunion, Lydia scrambled up to her room and closed the door as quietly as she could.

_ Saturday _ . Lydia closed her eyes and walked to her vanity.  _ Saturday, Saturday, Saturday _ .

A few swipes with a makeup wipe, and Lydia was staring into her pale, plain-faced reflection.  _ Pale… _ Her hand flew to her cheek as her eyes wandered her reflection. Pale and soft and small. Is that why he brought all that up? No, she brought that up. She did. And he fed her her own self under the guise of haughtiness.

But Saturday… Every spare instant her mind returned to Saturday.

Her blank expression morphed into a frown and her eyes became red with teary anger. What was happening to her? Flicking her head away from the mirror, Lydia leaned over her knees with her hands digging into her dark hair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for stopping by and checking out the newest chapter! If you liked it, comment down below and let me know! Comments are my favorite part of posting my work online.


	14. Maybe It's Witchcraft, Maybe It's Wine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the moment we've been waiting for: the day Saturday was to arrive on a Sunday! Hope you enjoy!

_ Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. _

It was finally Saturday. Of course, Lydia knew better than to go in the daytime, the most logical time for coffee. If Betelgeuse saw, he’d ask where she was going, and if she told him where she was going, he would force her to stay. And she couldn’t give up what would possibly be the last time she’d see Vincent again.

Once she was married…would she see anyone ever again? Where would he take her after the rings were exchanged? Goosebumps ran over her arms as she thought of the horrible Neitherworld just on the other side of her mirror. However, it did grant her today’s opportunity. Betelgeuse often disappeared through the glass to go to said necropolis. If Lydia was lucky, he would go on such an outing tonight, and she would be free—as long as she stayed within a mile of the house where Betelgeuse’s presence still remained even while he was in the Neitherworld. She didn’t want to imagine the consequences of breaking the contract, so she carefully chose which coffeeshop she and Vincent would meet at.

She would just drive over there, they’d talk and have a good time for an hour or two, and then she’d drive home. What Betelgeuse didn’t know wouldn’t kill him…again.

Similar to the reunion, Lydia gathered her purse, put on her favorite lipstick, and dressed in her favorite all-black outfit. What a beautiful time it was when she was in high school and would put together outfits so she could ride her bike into town for her and Vincent’s dates. He had applauded her pictures, admired her skeleton curtains, and trembled his way through her horror movies. Vincent. Her Vinny. Her first love.

Pausing from carefully applying her lipstick, Lydia sat back and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She had never kissed a boy before—or anyone in general. What if…? She gently touched her lips, not caring if the matte maroon lipstick was smearing onto her fingertips. Vincent was her first love, after all. What if he was her first kiss? That wasn’t something she wanted Betelgeuse to have the pride in having. Knowing him, he’d probably rub it in her face. It sounded like he was going to when he had asked about it before the reunion, after all.

Why couldn't he be more like Vincent? Why couldn’t he  _ be _ Vincent? She could easily imagine Vince as a sad-eyed, tragic spirit, perhaps an assassinated prince of a time long passed, asking for her hand. She’d much prefer that than the rude, smoking poltergeist who looked twenty years her senior.

Her pining was interrupted when she saw through her mirror the white skulls in her dark purple skeleton curtains light up as headlights shone through them. Dropping her makeup, she rushed to the window, knocking over her stool in the process, and tore them open. Sure enough, there was Vincent’s vintage car rolling up into her driveway.

Her throat seemed to ice over as she watched him wave at her through the windshield. Alright, small change of plans. He was going to drive. Still, everything would be fine. Betelgeuse wouldn’t know about this even after Vincent’s mistake.

Slowly, Lydia slipped off her boots and crept down the stairs, trying to make as little sound as possible. Every creak of the Victorian staircase made her wince as she cast anxious glances towards shadows and inanimate objects that bore anything even faintly resembling stripes. When the coast was clear, Lydia scurried across the living room to the front door, slipped on her shoes, and stepped out onto the porch.  _ Free _ .

“Are you okay, Lydia?” Vincent asked as he got out of his car to greet her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

_Thank God I didn’t_ , Lydia thought, touching her cheek.

“I’m okay,” she replied quickly. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Up in the attic, Betelgeuse reclined on the sofa. As Barbara requested, his filthy boots were dumped on the floor before his feet were put up on the sofa, though his socks weren’t much better. The Maitlands were bent over the model town as they listened to Betelgeuse talk, Adam carving out a replacement bridge as Barbara glued a roof onto the new house being built down the river.

“And so I said _‘let’s do this’_ but she said, _‘but I don’t have any baby oil’_. And so I said, _‘Well, I have some guacamole’_ , and that’s how I…” he paused and made dramatic air quotes, “‘made nachos’ with Katherine Hepburn.”

The Maitlands merely nodded, though they were distracted by the bright lights illuminating the dust on the window.

“What’s that?” Barbara asked as Adam phased through the table and looked out the window.

“It’s a car.”

“A car?” Betelgeuse and Barbara frowned in unison, and the poltergeist stood with a cigarette in hand, pushed open the window, and lit it with a flame on his thumb.

Barbara struggled to peer over the two men’s shoulders as they leaned out the window. “Anybody we know?” she asked.

“I don’t recognize the car,” Adam murmured. “Do you?”

“Adam, I didn’t even know what a car _was_ two weeks ago.” Betelgeuse rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to the car. “But, yeah, I feel like I’ve seen that car before. I hope I don’t owe ‘em money…”

A door creaked open, and Betelgeuse shoved up against Adam’s shoulder to lean further out the window. “Ooh, boy, Delia’s about to give it to ‘em with the whole ‘get off my property’ spiel!” He chuckled, but, a moment later, any sign of happiness fled from his face as he watched Lydia step out into the yard, conversing with the dark-haired young man who rubbed against Betelgeuse in all the wrong ways.

“What’s Lydia doing out there?” Barbara asked, finally getting a chance to see what was going on.

“It’s that _boy_ ,” Betelgeuse snarled, biting down on his cigarette.

Tearing himself from the window, Betelgeuse phased through Barbara as he rushed for the door, throwing off his suit jacket.

“Where are you going?” Adam called worriedly.

“To save Lydia’s hide!”

“I’m okay,” Lydia replied quickly. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Vincent merely nodded and reached to open the door for her. Just as Lydia was about to disappear into Vincent’s car, she heard a sound that made her clench her teeth to hold back a scream.

“Going to another reunion, Lyds?”

Betelgeuse stood in the doorway, leaning against one side with his shoulder pressed into it. He looked a little tousled. His hair looked a mess, to Vincent at least. Lydia had seen it look much worse, like he had stuck his tongue into an outlet. Besides that, his suit jacket was nowhere to be seen, which surprised Lydia. She had never seen him without his outfit, however filthy, all together. But now, his magenta shirt was half tucked in and his suspenders hung by his hips. It was like he had been caught off guard. Lydia bit her lip. If only he could have stayed in the dark for two more minutes, she and Vincent could be gone.

Lydia was half-tempted to close the car door right there, but she knew better. Whether she liked it or not, her home was Betelgeuse’s turf. He could rip that car door right off if he wanted. Standing by the other side of the car, Vincent was staring at Betelgeuse with wide eyes.

“Ryan? What are you doing in Lydia’s house?”

“Mm, good question.” The burning end of Betelgeuse’s cigarette lit up as he inhaled, illuminating his ghostly face. Disturbed, Vincent took a step back. “I’m surprised my little Persephone forgot to tell you.” He cast a dark glance through the car window at Lydia. “She _did_ forget to tell you, _didn’t she_?”

Lydia swallowed. That easygoing smile from the day of the reunion was gone, and the glare he was giving her now made her feel as if she’d never see it again.

“Forget to tell me…what?” Vincent asked, glancing at Lydia as well.

Betelgeuse walked to the edge of the porch. However, Lydia noticed he didn’t step off into the yard with her and Vincent. “Ever wonder where Lydia’s nice ring came from?”

Again, Vincent glanced at her, and Lydia hurried to remove the ring on her finger. However, the smooth metal suddenly jolted to a stop over her fingernail. No matter how she yanked, the stubborn ring stayed put on her finger. As she looked at Betelgeuse desperately, she could feel Vincent’s eyes resting on the ring.

“No… That’s…that’s impossible!” he exclaimed.

“Im _probable_ ,” Betelgeuse corrected with a smirk, smoke wafting out of his mouth as he spoke.

At last, Lydia got out of the car. “Stop, just stop!” she yelled out. “Go back inside the house!”

Betelgeuse stared at her for a moment, seemingly in shock that _she_ was trying to command _him_ , until he finally regained his half-lidded, vulture-like composure.

“If you know what’s best for the both of us, Lyds, you’ll take yourself and that pretty black dress back upstairs to your room.”

“What are you, my father?” Lydia raged. “Why can’t you let me do what I want for once without dragging you along?”

“You don’t have a choice!” Betelgeuse’s lip curled up into a snarl, which revealed his very dead-looking black gums and yellowed teeth.

Vincent was staring at the two of them now, his thin frame curled in on itself. “Lydia, what’s going on?

“Still clueless, are we?” Betelgeuse cackled as he flicked his burning cigarette at the couple. “Let me make it crystal clear to you.”

At that moment, Lydia froze despite wanting nothing more than to scream and run from whatever was sending chills up and down her spine. Every muscle felt like it was loosened against her will, yet she was still standing. Her breathing became voluntary, and she forced herself to blink. She wasn’t alone in her body anymore. Despite having seen possession depicted by Hollywood countless times, she knew nothing caught on camera could compare to this. At least the hapless humans had been forced out of bodies; Lydia felt as if Betelgeuse was inside of her skin with her, jostling against her soul and forcing her muscles under his whim. He was the one forcing her chest to expand and contract to breathe. He was the one with his fist around her heart, squeezing it to make it pump. He was the one dragging her to walk towards him as Vincent protested loudly. She barely heard him over Betelgeuse’s whispers in her ears.

Just as suddenly as he had invaded her body, he released his hold over her, and Lydia began to drop to the floor. Before she could, however, he caught her arm by the cast, the cast that should have been removed at least a week ago if it wasn’t for Betelgeuse. He shattered the plaster in his grip and tossed it aside, the names of Lydia’s family now in pieces in the grass.

“She couldn’t go with you even if she wanted to,” Betelgeuse said to the quaking Vincent. “If Lydia had been decent to ya, she would’ve _told you_. This house is mine. Everything in this house is _mine_.” Pulling Lydia up so she was standing straight, Betelgeuse gathered her to his chest and grinned. “Of course, I’m a reasonable man, Mr. Vince. I don’t take what isn’t given to me.”

“Stop,” Lydia whispered.

“And Lydia _agreed_ to the contract all those years ago.”

Poor Vincent looked doubly confused now as he glanced between Betelgeuse and Lydia, who was pulled flush to the former’s chest.

“T-That can’t be right—Lydia—”

Betelgeuse’s hold on Lydia’s arm tightened, similar to how it was on the fateful, stormy night of his first attempt at a wedding.

“She belongs to me now!”

Despite the cloudless sky above them, thunder roared even louder than Betelgeuse’s voice, shaking the windows of the house as Lydia winced at the eardrum-shattering sound. With her free hand, she attempted to pry his grip off so he wouldn’t break her arm for a second time, all the while trying to ignore what she had spent many a night training herself to forget.

_“I’m Lydia Deetz, and I’m of sound mind. The man next to me is the one I want; you asked me, I’m answering. Yes, I love that man of mine.”_

When Lydia was about to give up trying to loosen his iron-grip, she heard yet another voice that made her heart sing.

“What’s going on out here?” Adam gasped as he and Barbara opened the front door.

Lydia desperately glanced from Betelgeuse to Vincent, and the two ghosts quickly caught on that Vincent had no sense of their presence. Still, Barbara came between them and pried Lydia away from Betelgeuse like an owner pulling a bone from a dog’s jaw.

“Let her go. She’s not your property, and you can’t stop her from going anywhere as long as it’s not further than a mile. Lydia is smart enough not to do that. Let her go.”

Realizing Barbara was insinuating letting Lydia go in more than just letting go of her arm, he snorted angrily and looked away. “Why should I let her— _you_ go?” he scowled.

“Because I don’t want you being some kind of tyrant over my life, Betelgeuse,” Lydia snapped, making him squirm at the use of his name. “I don’t want you controlling my every action, whether that’s before we’re married or after.”

To say Betelgeuse looked angry would be an understatement. Despite himself, he didn’t move to grab her again. Pulling out another cigarette, he lit it and leaned against the porch railing. Lydia stared at him for a moment before slapping the burning cigarette out of his hand.

“Don’t ignore me!” Feeling Vincent’s eyes on her, Lydia looked over at him and pleaded, “Please don’t watch this. Get in the car.” To her relief, he complied, though slowly.

Betelgeuse turned on her, snarling. “And how do I know if I let ya go, you’ll come back, hmm? If I let you run off with tall, dark, and handsome down there, you might not come back, and I’ll be screwed over sideways!”

Lydia blinked in surprise. “I…I…” She couldn’t say she hadn’t thought of it. Her mouth hanging open, Lydia finally shook her head and said, “You think I would do that?”

“You went back on our first deal. I’m not gonna risk my neck again by lettin’ you gallavant of with some…” he cast a glance back at Vince, “ _guy_.”

“And if I promise to come back?”

“A woman’s promise is worth nothin’ to me.”

Huffing a sigh, Lydia turned and walked off the porch. “Oh, really?”

Betelgeuse began to follow but scrambled to a stop before he reached the last step of the porch. His eyes wide, he stared at the dewy grass beneath him and then up at Lydia. “You’re gonna get us both killed.”

Pausing, Lydia stood still for a moment. Her hair flicked around as it was tossed by the night wind and blew partially into her face when she turned to look at him. “Maybe I don’t care.”

“Lydia…” Barbara called after her.

She was only a few yards from the car now. She could just run. She could run and be free. Would it be so terrible?

“So just like that, huh?” The voice that spoke now was gruffer, Betelgeuse’s. He sat on the steps, his feet resting on the last step.

Lydia’s hand was resting on the doorhandle. She was so, so close. “Yes.”

The poltergeist stood, a new cigarette between his teeth. “Well, that makes my business easier.”

With that, he dramatically stretched out one leg and stepped off of the porch, disappearing immediately. Barbara screamed. Lydia stared at the spot where he disappeared, praying Vincent didn’t see. Her hand scrabbling for the door, she tried to ignore what just happened and slipped into the car where Vincent was waiting as he stared out the opposite window to the commotion.

“Let’s go.”

As he drove, Lydia rubbed her stomach, trying to make it untangle from the knots it was tied into. What just happened? _The_ _Handbook for the Recently Deceased_ stated that the number one rule for ghosts was don’t leave the house, and he hadn’t disappeared before when they had gone out together. Why did he disappear. Where did he disappear _to_?

“It went on forever,” Barbara had told her. “An endless desert. With…with those  _ things _ .”

Sandworms. Lydia shivered. Was Betelgeuse really gone?

A hand rested on hers, and she flinched and looked up to see Vincent holding her hand. He seemed to notice her expression and blushed a little. “You were shaking.”

“I…I…” The words were caught in her throat. “I’m just glad to be out of there.”

The coffeeshop was empty besides the sleepy-eyed staff. Lydia and Vincent got two plain coffees and sat in a booth by the huge display window. Taking the opportunity to extend the silence as long as possible, Lydia took a long sip of her steaming drink. However, the blessed quiet didn’t last long.

“So…can you please tell me what’s going on?”

Sighing shakily, Lydia set down her cup. “It’s…it’s complicated. Where should I start, because it’s a long story?”

“Uhm…” Vincent tapped his own cup with his fingers nervously. “The beginning…? Er, or how about the situation with Ryan? Are you two...are you two really engaged?”

Of course, that ring was still on her finger. Absentmindedly, she rubbed it. She had to tell the truth. There was no way around it now, and no Betelgeuse to back her up. No Betelgeuse… Something in her just felt empty at that thought. He had just stepped off, knowing what would happen…

“Yes…we’re engaged. We have been for almost three months.” Again, she shivered. Only nine more months until Sandworms, if that was even a possibility anymore with Betelgeuse gone.

“But…why? It’s pretty clear you don’t love him. Do you?”

“No! No, I don’t love him at all. It’s…it’s complicated.”

Vincent cocked his head as he took a sip of his coffee. “Does it have to do with the deal he mentioned?”

Lydia hung her head. She didn’t want to tell Vincent about this. She never wanted to have to have this conversation with him, and even now the words were refusing to come, even if she knew they had to be shared.

“You’re…you’re not going to believe me, and that’s fine, but…” Lydia paused and wrung her hands. “Vince… Ryan’s name isn’t actually Ryan. It’s Betelgeuse.”

“Beetle…juice?”

“Yes. And he’s dead.”

Vincent’s eyes grew even wider. “ _ Dead _ ?”

“Yes. He’s a ghost, well, poltergeist specifically. He haunted our house about ten years ago, a long time before I met you, and…well, basically the two other ghosts in my house—”

“Two others?”

“Yes, Adam and Barbara Maitland. They drowned in a river, but it was their house so they came back there to haunt it. Anyway, they hired Betelgeuse to scare me and my parents out of the house when we first moved in.”

“O…kay…”

The more she explained, the more confidant she became, especially as Vincent leaned forward with his cup in his hands to listen. His dark eyes were wide, but he was still listening attentively, understanding every word coming out of her mouth. Part of Lydia wanted to stop explaining and kiss him right there.

“Yeah, he tried to pull all this creepy stuff like turning into a giant snake. If I wasn’t scared out of my mind, I would have thought it was really cool, actually.” For the first time in a while, Lydia smiled, though it didn’t last very long. “But then he tried to use me to come back to life by marrying me—”

“Didn’t you say this was ten years ago?” Vincent asked hesitantly.

Lydia nodded. “Oh, yeah, it was. I think I was fourteen. Anyway, he tried to marry me, but then Barbara—one of the ghosts—rode in on a giant sandworm through the ceiling.”

“A what?”

“A sandworm. They’re giant black and white snakes with a false head, and they eat ghosts. Betelgeuse had used his magic to send Barbara to the Saturn—”

“Saturn?”

“Yes, Saturn, that’s where sandworms live. He sent her there to stop her from interrupting the ceremony by saying his name.”

“Uh-huh?”

Lydia paused and took a sip of her coffee. Her throat was dry. After a moment, she cleared her throat and continued, “But after he sent her there, she climbed onto the back of a sandworm and crashed down through the ceiling. Then the sandworm ate Betelgeuse and went back to Saturn.”

Looking a little white in the face, Vincent nodded and asked, “So…how is he back here?”

“Well, Juno, who’s the caseworker for the dead, she summoned him back out ten years later by saying his name three times. Then she took him here to finish the contract. If we don’t finish it, then we’ll both get sent to Saturn.”

At last, it was out, said and done. Lydia took another long sip of her coffee as she tried to ignore the wide-eyed look Vincent was giving her. Now that she was finished talking, it felt more like he was staring at her and less like he was trying to understand what she was saying. Finally, he seemed to come to and shake himself. Lydia looked at him hopefully. Maybe he wouldn’t take her back to the house. Maybe he would marry her first and they would move into a house or apartment less than a mile from the house, and the Netherworld executives wouldn’t know the difference.

“Lydia.” Vincent’s hand was cold and clammy as he grabbed her hand. “Have you…um…thought about ever…uh…”

“Ever what?” Lydia smiled, holding tightly onto his hand. She was once again reminded of how he had grabbed onto her hand and didn’t let go until the gory prom scene from Carrie was over with, or even after that. He hadn’t let go of her hand until he had to go home. She didn’t want him to let go ever again.

“Have you ever thought of seeking professional help?”

“Professional…” Lydia blinked. “Uh…no? I mean, I went to therapy after the wedding, but I never talked about it directly to anyone. Why?”

“We should…go…” Vincent said, gently pulling on her hand as he stood up.

“But we haven’t finished out coffee,” Lydia protested. “Besides, where are you going to take me? I can’t go further than a mile from the house.

“No, Lydia, we have to go now,” Vincent urged. “We need to find you some help.”

Her lip tightening, Lydia shook her head. “I don’t need help, Vincent. I have everything under control now, I promise. I mean, Betelgeuse just stepped off the porch to Saturn because he wasn’t supposed to leave the house—”

“Now, Lydia. Now.” He was pulling again, which only made Lydia more frustrated.

“Vincent, stop!” Lydia yanked her hand out of his, no matter how he tried to grab it again. “Everything is fine now, and I really can’t go further than a mile from the house. Not until I talk with Juno and see how Betelgeuse going to Saturn affects the contract now.”

“Lydia, you need to go to the hospital,” Vincent insisted suddenly, his eyebrows crushing together with worry.

Her heart seemed to stop. Taking a half-step back, Lydia stared at Vincent with wide eyes. “Wh…What do you mean?”

“Lydia, I…I know you love things dark and strange and unusual, but this is taking it too far! All this talk about a ghost trying to marry you and contracts and ghosts in your house. Ryan was a human, Lydia. I  _ saw _ him. But…but you’re saying he’s a ghost that tried to marry you when you were a kid, and…” he sighed and shook his head. “Lydia…”

“Because he did!” Lydia protested. “Look at the ring—it doesn’t come off! It’s been on my finger for the past ten years!”

Pulling at the ring, she demonstrated how it refused to come off her finger. However, Vincent merely reached forward and took her hand gently before slipping the ring off it himself. It came off into his hand with no resistance, and Lydia stared at it with wide eyes. Her pale ring finger bore an even paler mark where the ring once sat, and Lydia snatched the ring back from him. Her finger felt…naked without it.

“See what I mean?” Vincent said, attempting to be gentle as he rested a hand on her arm. “We need to take you to a doctor.”

“You don’t believe me,” Lydia whispered. She stood very still before him, her head down low.

Vincent hesitated to reply before finally sighing, “I…Lydia, ghosts aren’t real.”

“They  _ are _ . You just can’t see them. No one can see them like I can.” 

He was pulling again. “Come on, Lydia. Everything will be alright.”

Lydia had half a mind to let him take her with him, no matter where he was going as long as it was away from the house that had been like a prison for the past three months. But, no, that fire deep inside of her was raging. He was calling her crazy, all because she was different, all because she could see things he didn’t, all because of…of Betelgeuse.

She let her hand slip freely through his, and he looked back at her in surprise. He thought she had been going along with him at last.

“No…”

“But, Lydia—”

“No. I’m going home.”

Lydia walked up to him before passing him and his car over to the sidewalk. She was going home to the house on the hill. She heard him call her name. Once. Twice. Three times he called her. She heard the scuff of his shoes as he began to walk after her, and she broke into a run. Now, it was dark, and as she drew closer and closer to the hill with Vincent in pursuit, the streetlamps were getting further and further away.

By the soft gurgling sound nearby, she knew she had reached the river and kept running. She was almost out of breath when her foot suddenly shot down at a sharp incline, and she plummeted down the hill and into the Winter River. Sharp rocks jabbed into her as she rolled down the riverbank and into the water. The sound of Vincent’s footsteps echoed above her across the bridge. He was still calling her name.

Soaked to the bone and shivering, Lydia dragged herself out of the river’s rushing waters and sat under the bridge, her chin resting on her muddied knees with their now torn black stockings. Despite herself, she chewed her lip and closed her eyes, resisting the tears that were threatening to slip down her cheeks. Finally, one rebellious tear fell, followed by another, then five more.

Why did she tell Vincent everything? How stupid was she? She should have known better than to tell him the truth. No wonder he thought she was insane. Maybe she was. Maybe this was all some horrible dream, and she was just fourteen and having a nightmare from having to sleep in her new room in the house on the hill. A very long horrible nightmare. The Maitlands were still alive, maybe their next door neighbors. She was just starting out at Miss Shannon’s School for Girls. Betelgeuse…he was…Betelgeuse…Betelgeuse…

“Betelgeuse…” Lydia whimpered. He was gone. He had willingly gone to Saturn because she wanted to run away with…with some boy.

“Well, dang, this ain’t Reno.”

Gasping, Lydia looked up as her tears slowed. Betelgeuse, covered in sand and thoroughly tousled, stood knee deep in the Winter River. When he realized he was standing in water, he screeched in a similar manner as he had when he fell in the pool and jumped up, floating in midair.

“Betelgeuse?” Lydia asked, wiping her blotchy cheeks with the heel of her hand.

“That’s m’ name, don’t wear it out.”

He turned, that cigarette still between his teeth, though there wasn’t much left of it anymore. However, there was enough from him to breathe in one more time and make it cast it’s eerie glow, also illuminating Lydia’s red face.

“Whoa! Hold the presses!” He landed again in the river and sloshed over to her before peeling off his combat boots and dumping out the wet orange sand inside. “What happened to _you_? And where’s Prince Charming?”

Lydia’s lip quivered, and she sniffled again as she buried her face into her knees. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the butt of his cigarette land next to her before he sat next to her on the other side.

“I get it. Guys suck.”

This managed to make her force out a laugh that bubbled in her chest, and Betelgeuse smirked at her.

“It’s true.” He nodded, and she sighed as she rubbed her reddened nose.

“I told him the truth, and now he thinks I’m crazy. He wanted to take me to a hospital.”

Betelgeuse made a short disapproving noise and brushed off his sandy shirt. “Dang.”

“Yeah…” Lydia rested her chin on her knees again. “Guys do suck.” Casting a half-glance at him, she added quietly, “See any sandworms?”

“Nope, not a one. Just my luck.”

Lydia sat and stared at the rolling river before them. “You left because you were mad, didn’t you?”

Betelgeuse didn’t respond at first. Instead, he stretched his legs out spread-eagle towards the river and dug around in his pockets for his pack of cigarettes only to find even his secret inner pockets empty. With no cigarettes or even a tie to do his fiddling, he murmured at last, “No.”

Lydia blinked in surprise and glanced over at him with raised eyebrows. She was expecting him to go on, but when he didn’t, she cleared her throat.

“I left because I figured, ‘hey, if she’s always gonna go running off with other guys, what’s the point of putting up with all this?’” With a shrug, he added, “I just figured it’d make everythin’ easier for the both of us.”

“So you basically committed the ghost-version of suicide?”

She could practically see the tingles running up Betelgeuse’s spine as he straightened and coughed a little. In the darkness of the night under the bridge’s shadow, his pale blond hair almost looked white. “That’s…that’s not was that was.”

“That’s what it looked like,” Lydia murmured, pressing her chin against her knees.

And silence fell. Lydia continued to stare at the gurgling river below them as Betelgeuse ran a hand down the front of his chest to fidget with the tie that wasn’t there.

“Of all the things I thought would happen on y’all’s little night out, I wasn’t expecting him t’ try to drag you off to the loony bin.”

Lydia choked another laugh. “Me neither, trust me. Me and Vincent…” her eyes slowly raised to the bridge where she knew the boy had passed, “I…I think anything that was between us is gone now…” She hated to admit it, especially in front of Betelgeuse, but she knew it was true. Her first love was gone.

“What…was between you…?” Betelgeuse asked.

Biting her lip, Lydia stood and brushed off her skirt. “It feels a little weird talking about it.”

Betelgeuse flopped down onto his back so he could continue to look up at her. “Yanno, I think I have just the thing to help with that.”

He was up in a blink, hastily brushing off the sand and wet grass from his suit with about three too many hands. “Let’s get outta here.”

Unfortunately, there was no magical snap, and they were there. The woman and ghost hauled themselves up the steep riverbank, across the bridge, and up the hill. Luckily, they were both mostly dry so the Maitlands didn’t panic when they saw them. Barbara opened her mouth to speak, but Betelgeuse just shook his head at her as Lydia hurried upstairs to change into some more comfortable clothes. 

When Lydia walked into the hall in her shapeless black dress with a dark grey cardigan, she found Betelgeuse standing by the stairs whistling absentmindedly.

“Well?”

“It’s a surprise. Up on the roof.”

She raised an eyebrow. “The roof?”

“Yeah, the roof,” he insisted, stepping closer, and Lydia noted he was holding something behind his back with one hand. With the other hand, he made airquotes as he said, “It’s where we have all of our ‘serious’ conversations.”

Lydia laughed a little at the disgusted face he made before turning back to the room and climbing through the window up onto the roof. She hadn’t gone up there in a little while, and the slightly humid summer breeze felt nice as it blew her damp hair across her shoulders. Betelgeuse appeared a moment later, and she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, pretending to pay him as little mind as possible. With a grin, he finally pulled out what he had been hiding from her, and this time Lydia couldn’t hide her surprise, her hands flying to her mouth and her eyes widening.

“Red wine from the heart of…uh…Delia’s wine cabinet. Enjoy.” He set the tall bottle down between them and stuck his legs through two rungs of the ceiling’s railing.

“I’ve never had wine before,” Lydia admitted as she picked up the sweaty bottle and played with the gold foil at the neck. “I’ve never had…you know, alcohol in general.”

“Ever? Not even on your—whatever legal age is it now—birthday?”

Lydia chuckled. “No. I mean, I’ve seen my parents have it all the time, but… I’ve never… I’ve always been curious…” she was starting to pull at the foil now, and it easily came off in her hand. “What’s that twisty thing?”

Reaching over, Betelgeuse slipped one wiry finger through the metal hook at the top and pulled, and the bottle opened with a satisfying pop.

“So that’s not just from the movies,” Lydia said, peering with one eye into the bottle at the shiny liquid inside. After a moment, she glanced over at Betelgeuse and asked, “You want…me to…?”

He only gave an innocent shrug, and Lydia allowed herself a small shy sip. It was a strange flavor to be sure, and it made her mouth dry. However, it was just as sweet as she imagined it would be, and she took another sip.

“So, uh, what were you gonna tell me about Vincent?” Betelgeuse asked, not taking his eyes off of her.

Lydia thought it over for a moment before giving in at long last. If the truth was coming out tonight, it might as well be the whole truth. “Vincent and I…dated in high school.”

Betelgeuse nodded slowly as he looked her up and down. “But I thought you said you’d never kissed a boy before. Unless you were lyin’, of course.”

“I haven’t!” Lydia exclaimed, her face flushing. “I haven’t, I told you that! Ugh… I… We never kissed when we were dating. I guess we were too young, or… I don’t know. We just never did.”

The bottle slipped out of her grasp, and she looked up to see Betelgeuse taking a swig of it himself. After a moment, he handed it back to her. “And now he thinks you’re crazy?”

“He always has,” Lydia sighed, looking deeply into the bottle. “I kind of knew that when we were dating. He was always really surprised by something about me every time we talked or he came over to the house. First it was wearing all black all the time, then it was the skeleton curtains and horror movie collections, then it was my obsession with ghosts.” Shaking her head, Lydia took another sip of the wine. “He said one time that ghosts aren't real, but I kind of just brushed it off. I thought I could change his mind. I thought I could make him just as strange and unusual as me. I thought…I thought he liked me for my abnormality.”

She was starting to cry again, and Betelgeuse pursed his lips and pulled his neck into his shoulders a little. He hadn’t _meant_ to make her cry again, and now he was getting all those gross squirmy feelings in his gut again. However, just as he opened his mouth to say something, Lydia threw her head back and took a deep gulp of the wine.

“Well look what being strange and unusual’s brought me!” she exclaimed, her voice echoing from the top of the roof and down the hill.

“Now look at me,” she continued, her voice now a murmur as she rested the side of her head against her knees. She was looking at Betelgeuse with tired eyes, bloodshot from crying. “Twenty-four and still living at my parents’ house because I’m so scared of failure that I haven’t even thought of moving out or going to school. I should be graduated by now…I should be married by now…I should have a real job by now…” Miserably, Lydia looked down at the bottle in her hand and held it out to the ghost next to her, who was sitting silenced by shock. “Want some?”

He took the bottle and drank a good amount as well. “Welp…I wasn’t expecting _that_. But, uh…” He shook his head and looked over at her. “Dang, all this because you’re scared? Other than the whole snake thing, I was pretty darn sure nothin’ scared you.”

Lydia couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Well, thanks, but… I…I am scared. I’m scared of a lot. I’m scared of moving away and becoming a boomerang child. I’m scared that I’m going to drop out of college and waste a ton of money. I’m scared that…that I’m going to be the family failure…” she wiped at the smudged mascara on her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “And I’m a little afraid Vince is gonna call the police because he thinks I’m crazy.” The last one, she said in between a chuckle and a sob.

“Ehhh…” Betelgeuse took another gulp of the wine, and Lydia frowned and tried to take it back from him. “I wouldn’t let ‘em.”

“Wouldn’t…wouldn’t let ‘em what?” Lydia asked as she debated on whether or not to put the cork back on or drink the rest.

“I wouldn’t let ‘em lock ya up or whatever.”

Giggling a little bit, Lydia edged closer to him. “What would you do to them?”

The poltergeist beside her mulled it over and tapped his stubbly chin thoughtfully. “I’d…I’d turn their shirts into straightjackets and load ‘em up in their own trucks to be taken away.”

“Or you could just possess them like you did me,” Lydia yawned. “You could possess ‘em and make ‘em…I dunno…walk into the river or something.”

“Now that’s a good one.” Betelgeuse nudged the empty bottle of wine between them with his boot. “Are we done here?”

As the bottle rolled over to her, Lydia fumbled to pick it up before peering at him with squinted eyes over the emerald glass. Glancing just once from the bottle to him, she raised a hand and tossed it at him. Luckily for the ghost, it soared over his head and landed a few feet behind him, shattering.

“You…jerk!”

“What? What’d I do?” Betelgeuse demanded, raising his hand innocently while Lydia staggered to her feet.

“You brought…you brought that up here to make me talk about Vincent!” Lydia exclaimed, her hazy brain taking a few moments to compute what she wanted to say. “You got me drunk so I’d talk!”

“Can’t blame a guy for bein’ curious…” Betelgeuse muttered. “‘Sides, I’ve been waitin’ for you to break outta that goody-two-shoes shell ‘a yours. I saw a little bit of it when we were pranking Cindy-Whatever-Her-Name-Was. I wanted more.”

Huffing a sigh, Lydia started to turn back towards the window, and Betelgeuse called after her, “You really think climbin’ down that ladder tipsy’s a good idea.”

“I’m not staying up here with you all night.”

He was looking down over the ledge at her as she started down the ladder. As her clumsy hands slid down the metal rungs of the ladder, she gave out a small yelp when she lost her grip, but she merely hung in midair, staring down at the inclined section of roof a couple feet below her. After a moment of Lydia hanging in midair, two hands wrapped around her waist and guided her down to the next section of roof. She had half a mind to slap them away of course, but the barely-functioning part of her brain that was her reasoning told her that right now, he was the only thing keeping her from sliding off the roof.

Betelgeuse guided her the rest of the way to her window, even opening it for her as he kept one hand on her lower back to keep her from falling, another gripping the back of her jacket to hold her upright, and a third to steady himself. Once she was safely in her room, Lydia shuffled over to her bed and sat down, rubbing her red nose and eyes as she watched Betelgeuse lean his head and shoulders into her room.

“You’ve had quite a night,” he said, his voice oddly…gentle.

Lydia chuckled a little, looking at the sand still caught up in his hair. “So have you.”

He caught on and ruffled his hair a little. “No kidding. Just sayin’, you’re gonna have quite the headache in the mornin’. Fax me or call me or whatever you do nowadays. If anybody knows how to get rid of a hangover, it’s the Ghost with the Most.”

Lydia shed her shoes and climbed into bed before giving a weak nod. “I…I’ll do that… Thanks…Be…Beeju…Beej… Goodnight…” she murmured, already half asleep.

As she closed her eyes, Betelgeuse appeared in her room, floating closely to her bed. He hated nicknames. Stars, he hated nicknames. He…he _used_ to hate nicknames.

Her dark brown eyes slowly drifted open just in time to catch him pulling the covers over her shoulder, and he jolted back, snorting angrily out his nose like an annoyed bull. Thankfully, she just closed them again and nestled deeper into the covers.

“G’nite Lyds.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for checking out the newest installment of Call My Name! I had a great time writing this chapter, and I'd love to hear what you think about it. Until next Sunday!


	15. Flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, guys (though I guess I am a little late, haha)! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! After the incident with Vincent and the wine, we get to see the aftermath.

Lydia awoke early, much too early to wake up with a hangover. Her head felt like it was going to split open as she craned her eyes open to look at her clock, which read 6:30 a.m. Letting out a small groan, she buried herself under the covers again as she tried to go back to sleep, but the headache and her dry mouth was too much. Once she finally gave into her own weaknesses, she tossed off the covers and slipped her feet into some warm woolen socks before walking downstairs.

As expected, no one was up that early. It was just her, the red rising sun, and a lone striped coffee cup sitting on the table. She was in mid yawn when she noticed the cup, and her lips twisted into a smile as she walked over and picked it up.

“Gee, I wonder who left this out? Oh well, I guess I’ll go put it in the dishwasher.”

“NO!”

In a blink, Betelgeuse appeared before her, and instead of holding onto the cup’s handle, her hand was wrapped around his tie. She just giggled. “You know, maybe you should stop turning into cups. If I’m remembering right, Barbara used you as a paintbrush washer for a few hours.”

“Don’t remind me. I’m  _ still _ finding paintbrushes in places.” He reached into his pockets and pulled out a few dripping paintbrushes still topped with red and blue paint with one hand and a lemon with the other. This only made Lydia laugh more, though she tried to keep it quiet so she wouldn’t wake anyone up.

Before she knew it, another cup was in her hands, and she frowned a little. The contents was a clearish yellow color, and it didn’t have the strong smell that coffee did.

“What’s this?”

“Tea.” Floating near the cabinets, the ghost peered over his shoulder at her, an eyebrow raised.

“I don’t drink tea,” she argued as her headache grew worse, and she sat down at the table against her will.

“It’ll help with your hangover.” His smile was teasing, and he lazily drifted over with his own cup.

Taking a sip, Lydia blinked in surprise at the tea’s flowery taste but watched as Betelgeuse drew up a seat at the head of the table, the chair next to hers. He had both of his unfeeling pale hands wrapped around the scalding hot mug, and he was looking up at her incredulously. “So?”

“So what?”

“Is your headache gone?”

Lydia gave a halfhearted chuckle. “You’re funny. No.” After taking another sip of her tea in hopes of helping her hangover, she glanced back up at him, “Do ghosts even get hangovers?”

“Mmm…” he was in the middle of taking a drink, and he waved at her with his free hand. “Not unless they get really,  _ really _ drunk. The stuff we drank last night didn’t even make my eyelid twitch. Tolerance and all that crap.”

“Oh yeah?” Lydia raises an eyebrow. “Still, it’s got me thinking…”

“Oh no, don’t do that.”

Her smile a little wider now, Lydia leaned forward and grinned. “What’s it like being dead?”

Almost immediately after Lydia posed the question, Betelgeuse did something unexpected: he choked. He choked for so long that Lydia started to become concerned until he pounded his chest and sat back up.

“Well, uh, whaddya mean? Be more specific,” he murmured, staring down at the contents of his mug.

“It’s not that difficult,” Lydia frowned, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. “How does it feel?”

The poltergeist rested his elbows on the table and bit his swollen purple lip. “Well, you don’t have a heartbeat for one…”

“And what’s that like?”

“…Quiet?” For once, he sounded almost unsure as he answered, giving her a sideways glance. “You’re alone for a long time when you’re a ghost. Breathers don’t really appreciate the noise their heartbeat makes or breathing makes. But when you wake up six feet under the ground after getting your Neitherworld papers signed, well…” he shrugs. “Don’t tell anybody you heard it from me though. I only know this from a friend. I technically don’t  _ have  _ Neitherworld citizenship. Once you get that, you gotta dig your way out of your own grave to enter the city…”

Lydia shuddered, feeling claustrophobic as she imagined herself being closed up in a musty coffin. Still, Betelgeuse’s explanation only intrigued her more. “Why don’t you have citizenship? I thought you said that only people who moved on didn’t have to get citizenship.”

“And  _ that’s _ where you’re wrong. More tea?” He frowned a little as Lydia shook her head but waved a hand over his mug to refill it with tea. “I said ghosts who don’t live in the Neitherworld don’t need citizenship.”

“So who doesn’t live in the Neitherworld? You didn’t make the rest of the afterlife sound very big.”

“I told ya.” He took a sip of his tea. “Caseworkers, guides, and ghosts who’ve moved on.”

Lydia paused, slowly looking Betelgeuse up and down. He was wearing the clothes the Maitlands said that he was wearing when they first met: old fashioned breeches with torn-up knee stockings, a red vest with a black beetle pattern, and a heavy leather trench coat covered in mold, moss, and dirt.

“You’re too dirty to be a caseworker…” Lydia murmured thoughtfully.

“You got that right,” Betelgeuse snorted. “Afterlife’s only got one of those at a time, an’ right now it’s the old Junebug. Don’t let her 1960s dresses and pearls fool ya; the lady’s undead proof that dinosaurs roamed the earth. She’s been dead even longer than I have.”

“So…you were a guide?”

With a snap of his fingers, a beaten up hat appears on his head, a metal plate reading “GUIDE” emblazoned across it. “No kidding, Sherlock.”

Lydia huffed a sigh, though a smirk remained on her lips. “So what does a guide do?”

His jaundiced eyes swiveled around in his head. “Well, someone’s just  _ full _ of  _ questions _ this mornin’,  _ aren’t they _ ?” Looking into Lydia’s self-satisfied face, Betelgeuse sighed heavily, deciding to humor her. “Guides do exactly what it sounds like. They go back ‘n forth between the living realm and the Waiting Room, helpin’ newlydeads pass over so they can get everything sorted out with Juno, capiche?”

“So how long have you been doing that?”

“Eh, ever since I got promoted from bein’ a receptionist.” He yanked up his sleeve to look at his mismatching and mistimed watches. “Let’s see… I was stuck in the back filing for about a hundred years, then I got promoted to the receptionist job with all the ladies—that was fun—and did that for about, eh, two hundred ‘n somethin’ years before getting promoted to Juno’s assistant. After that, it was basically unspoken that I got promoted to guide. Pretty sure that’s as high up on the ladder as you can go without bein’ a caseworker yerself…”

“I…didn’t realize…” Lydia paused and swallowed her words. She had assumed Betelgeuse just mucked around in the living world for 600 years. She hadn’t realized he was working that whole time, all for Juno. “Why were you working for her?”

“Had no other choice that’s why. I was a civil servant.”

Pausing, Lydia glanced down at her cup, almost afraid to meet his eyes. If Otho had been right… “Why were you a civil servant? What…what qualifies you for that position?”

“Well, you gotta be dead,” he replied, both eyebrows raised.

Lydia blew him a raspberry. “Don’t play smart with me.”

“Mmm…” He took another sip of tea. “Ask the Maitlands. They’ll tell you.”

She frowned, trying to keep his eyes on hers, but she felt his eyes glance down and trace the curve of her mouth. “And if I wanna hear it from you?”

He debated on it, really mulled it over. Finally, he raised his eyebrows and leaned closer to her as he seemed to know how he was going to explain it. However, Lydia only felt that frustrated fire in her belly as his thoughtful expression turned into a smirk, and he replied, “Then get used to bein’ disappointed.”

They both leaned back in their respective chairs, Lydia glaring at the poltergeist as he took a smug sip of tea with an equally smug smile.

“Alright, fine,” she sighed. “If you won’t tell me about the afterlife, then what was it like when you were alive?”

This drew his attention. “You wanna know what the 1300s were like?”

“Yeah. But don’t tell me something I could read in a history book.” She was getting excited again, her dark brown eyes brightening from their previously hungover haziness. “Tell me something you remember that no one else would know.”

He stared at her, his line of a mouth twitching back and forth as he didn’t really know how to respond, what quip to come back with. It was a simple question, really. All she wanted was a memory, just one memory, from when he was alive centuries and centuries ago. Something that no one else would know was the hardest part. He could have told her about the faint memories he had riding horses everywhere or paying for things with coins instead of paper money. Luckily, he was saved by the bell as the Maitlands came downstairs.

Needless to say, they were surprised at seeing Lydia up so early and even more shocked that Betelgeuse was also up and with her. When the two ghosts walked it, the pair was sitting quietly at the kitchen table as Lydia waited for Betelgeuse to finish thinking about his answer, their hands wrapped around their respective mugs. It was quiet and calm and…peaceful, which was a word the Maitlands would have never thought to use as long as Betelgeuse was in the situation. And yet, there they were.

Adam looked over at Barbara, who was already looking at him. Many an early morning they would sit at that table, though now repainted, and have their coffee or tea. For the first time since Betelgeuse arrived, they felt like everything might be okay. This might just work. They had no other choice after all; Lydia and Betelgeuse had to be married. And now it seemed as if they would be able to be married without tearing each other apart. Their adopted daughter would be okay, and the poltergeist, well, he might be alright, too.

It was at this moment that they realized Lydia and Betelgeuse were now staring at them, and they smiled sheepishly.

“Good morning, Lydia,” Adam said. “Good morning—oh.”

And he was gone, his empty mug left at the head of the table before an empty, slightly askew seat. Lydia started, and, to the Maitlands’ surprise, sighed disappointedly.

“Oh, well,” she murmured as she got up to get some breakfast. “I kind of expected that.”

“What were you guys doing?” Barbara asked as she set more water to boil for tea.

Despite herself, Lydia’s pale cheeks flushed. “Just…talking,” she replied. Her hands fumbled with the milk lid as she refused to focus on anything, her fingers slipping around it as they refused to grab it.

“Oh? About what?”

Lydia sighed as she finally opened the gallon of milk and filled her bowl of cereal. “About death and stuff. I figured since he’s the resident expert…” Lydia trailed off. “But I guess he doesn’t really want to talk anymore. It’s okay.”

The Maitlands exchanged another glance. “Maybe we scared him off,” Barbara offered. “I’m sure you two can, um…continue your conversation some other time.”

Lydia nodded a little as she quickly finished her breakfast and headed outside. No doubt Betelgeuse was either in his room or visiting the Netherworld, but Lydia wasn’t going far. It had been a while since she had just gone out into her yard, lied down on the soft grass, and just existed. After high school, her life was so busy, busy, busy. But now…she had no other choice than to stay.

Now, she was lying on her back a little ways from the house, her body at a downwards angle due to the steep hill. The grass prickled softly against her back and hair, the clouds rolled by unaware of the activity down below them, and the breeze blew over her every so often, picking up her hair and playing with it. The sun above her was shining down harshly, and she began to sweat a little. 

_ “Have you thought about the weddin’ any?” _

A frown came upon Lydia’s lips as the thought crossed her mind. She didn’t want to think about it, but the idea of it was tantalizing. When she was younger, she didn’t really think about her wedding much. Was that different? Was that another facet of her unusualness? She wasn’t sure. In fact, the thought of being married didn’t strike her until she was held tightly to the poltergeist’s side, both dressed in wedding clothes as red as…blood was too cliché. Now that she thought about it, the red color of that wine he stole for her reminded her a bit of that dress…

No, no, no. Lydia scowled and directed her attention back to the clouds. What was she thinking? She had been terrified of him for years. The nightmares didn’t stop until the year after the first time he came, and even then, every so often she would see his rotten form all dressed up in his ragged red velvet suit. He was smiling, as always. Before his second arrival at the house, Lydia had only seen two emotions on that grim face: perverted glee and raw anger.

Or was that all she saw? Lydia rolled over onto her stomach and played a little with the white clovers beneath her hand. There were little snippets she heard from the Maitlands of his somewhat awkward demeanor, as if he didn’t really know how to have a normal conversation with them, with normal people like them. Even she got to see a bit of it. It was before the wedding,  _ right _ before the wedding, just after the circus display to get rid of Maxie Dean and his wife.

He had been…well, as the Maitlands put it, awkward, like a magician who had run out of tricks and was improvising. No doubt, he still had a plan, but there he was standing with his hands behind his back when they weren’t gesturing randomly. He had even cracked a half-cooked pun about the Maitlands getting enough “exorcise” for the night, and threw around finger guns to prank his terrified victims.

She had seen a bit more of that side to him after he arrived. When he had fallen into the pool and screeched like a pterodactyl, and then when he humored her by going along with her scheme to get out of being picked on by Claire. She…she liked him, actually. Did she love him? No, absolutely not. But she liked him a little, if not moderately. If only he wasn’t so confusing. Was something so wrong about her question that he ran away from her?

Slowly, Lydia picked a posy of the white clovers, and trudged back inside. Placing the posy on her vanity, she slumped down in front of the mirror, positioning her elbows as not to squash the flowers. She had a few of her photos from her previous outing: the bagworm, Waldo’s grave, the picture of—

Lydia paused and brushed aside the other polaroids. Betelgeuse’s picture. It was much like many of the other supernatural sighting photos she’d seen: a little blurry due to her turning quickly to get the shot, but she could see bright light in the middle of the picture, and, most distinctly, a face. It looked…a little bit like him. It was still blurry, and the only features were two gaping black holes that looked like the purple bruises and dark circles around his eyes. Lydia chuckled a little. It was too bad that he doesn’t like being photographed. She could make a collage of authentic poltergeist photos. The more she stared at the photo, the picture of him, slowly, began to focus, like it was developing before her eyes. First came the black and white stripes, of course, then the wild mane of hair. Despite the photograph being colored, he was still in black and white only. Even with a few details of his clothes and hair coming into view, it was still your classic unfocused ghost picture.

Sighing a little, Lydia stood to grab her folder to tuck these photos safely away, and she tossed a half-glance towards the mirror. Immediately, she gasped and scuttled away, knocking over her stool.

“Betelgeuse!” she gasped, staring at the pale ghostly visage that reflected what she saw in the photograph—greyscale with dark voids for eyes and wild hair that faded into the background.

However, as soon as she reacted, she heard him cackle and watched as he returned to the familiar, slightly less horrifying ghost she knew.

“What was that?” she demanded as she grabbed her folder from her nightstand.

He gave a playful shrug. “Payback for takin’ my picture.”

“You should let me do it more often.” Lydia was smiling, willing to forget how he ghosted her quite literally earlier that morning; she picked up the photo and showed it to him. “You’re very photogenic.”

He only wrinkled his nose at the photo, sniffing at it with disdain. “Eh, I never liked having my picture took. Or portraits, or whatever it is.”

“Not even when you were alive?” Lydia dared to push as she began to slide the photos into the plastic protectors.

He rolled his eyes. “Lyds, it was  _ worse _ back then. You had to sit for weeks in the same position, holding the same face for  _ hours _ . You ever wonder why no one smiles in portraits? That’s why. And then at the end of it you have to pay them for putting you through torture!”

Lydia merely laughed. “Oh, I know. I did some research on medieval portraiture in high school just so I could tease Delia about her abstract art.”

He rumbled with a low, throaty chuckle, though his smile faded just slightly as he glanced down at the items sitting on Lydia’s vanity. Glancing up at him, she finished putting her photos away and followed his eyes to the little posy of clovers.

“Flowers…”

“Yeah,” Lydia said, walking back over to her desk to put her folder away. “I picked those when I went outside. They grow all over this hill—"

The poltergeist merely shook his head. “No, I mean… _ flowers _ .”

At this, Lydia paused from sliding the desk drawer shut. “What do you mean?”

“It’s…what I remember…” he mumbled as he leaned forward a little on his elbow, his hand positioned so it was holding his chin and partially covering his mouth.

Slowly, Lydia sat back down at the vanity, and this silently beckoned him to continue.

“Back when…I was…you know…there was this little valley behind my house. I used to go there all the time since I was a kid. Every spring just before summer hit, the grass would get all tall n’ green, and there’d be yellow n’ white n’ blue flowers. Like some sorta  _ Sound of Music _ shindig.”

Once she made sure he was finished talking, Lydia sat back in her stool. That…was not what she expected him to remember. Flowers?

“How often did you go?”

He shrugged halfheartedly. “Every ‘bout every year since I was seven…until I died, that is.”

_ Oh _ . Lydia swallowed a little as she reminded herself that Betelgeuse was indeed a person whose mortal life had ended—prematurely, too, it seemed, as he didn’t look  _ that _ old.

“Do you…miss it?”

He gave a short chuckle and shifted his position so the flat of his hand was resting beneath his chin. Raising an eyebrow, he replied, “That’s like askin’ if I miss the wind or the taste of food or getting to use the bathroom. I don’t really remember what it was like, so I can’t really miss it.”

Lydia sat and picked at her nails a little, mulling over her options. Finally, she stood and grabbed her purse. “You wanna go somewhere?”

He also stood—she hadn’t realized before that he had been sitting—and stuck his head and shoulders through the mirror. “Where’re we headed?” he asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Guess not.”

When Lydia went downstairs, he met her there, floating in a cross-legged position, and when she stepped out onto the porch he followed. Suddenly, Lydia flung out her arm in front of his chest. “Wait, don’t!”

“Don’t what?” He glanced down at her arm and then over to her.

Lydia almost looked sheepish, no…afraid. “Won’t you get teleported to Saturn?”

He gave another chuckle, stepped out onto the grass, and spread his arms into a wide shrug. “Well, I’m glad you’re so concerned about my safety, Lyds, but I’ll be fine.”

Lydia watched him for a moment as if she was still afraid he would disappear before following after him and getting into the car. As she pulled out onto the dirt road heading down to the town, she asked, “Why…did you disappear yesterday?”

“M’cause…” he leaned back in his seat, one knee up as he rested his boot on the seat, “I didn’t have permission. You didn’t want me to pass out of the threshold of the house into the living world, so when I stepped out into the living world, I was automatically sent to Saturn like all ghosts who don’t get permission.” He looked over at her. “Your run-of-the-mill ghost won’t have that permission—only guides can go into the living world, and even that’s got its limitations.”

“So where would you be able to go if you were a ghost in the living world, and a guide, too? Like you, what was it like for you?”

He raised an eyebrow as he fished out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket. “So curious about us deadbeats, huh?”

Lydia sighed and rolled down the windows as he lit the cigarette and started to smoke, but eventually he replied, “Ghosts staying in the living world can only stay in their residence or whatever area they’ve attached themselves to, either where they died or a place they were really emotionally attached to, like the Maitlands. It’s a miracle they weren’t stuck haunting that river forever. Guides like me can go into the living world, but they’ve got limitations.”

He paused to blow some smoke out the window before continuing, “Guides can only go after the soul they’re supposed to ferry over to the Netherworld. That means no getting sidetracked, no pit stops, no nothin’. If you try it, it hurts like heck. ‘S the whole reason I wanted outta that gig. After I left and got to be freelance, I was tied to my grave since, don’tcha know it, that’s where my soul is most strongly tied to. But I managed to get over to the Maitlands’ house, ‘n I started to put my signature on it. I was expecting to be stayin’ there long-term after I came alive and all that. Didn’t really work out that way.”

Lydia nodded a little. “So maybe that’s why I felt so on edge even after so much time had passed. You know…why I thought about you so much… Your spiritual signature was still there.”

“Aww, you thought about me?” He pressed his hands to his heart as he spoke through his cigarette.

Lydia frowned. “Nothing good, I assure you. But…yeah, I did. Wondering what would have happened if…you know…you had gotten your way if you had come alive and all that. What was your plan, anyway? You married a fourteen-year-old girl, and then what?”

“Mmm… Good question. I was kinda flying by the seat of m’ striped pants if you get what I mean. I hadn’t planned ahead quite that far. Plus, I wasn’t exactly plannin’ on  _ you _ bein’ my bride.”

“Oh really?” Lydia scoffed.

Betelgeuse looked hurt, and he squirmed in his seat. Seeing his discomfort, Lydia laughed a little. He kind of deserved it.

“I’m not that kinda creep!”

“Yeah, I figured,” Lydia chuckled. “Can you imagine if you had succeeded, though? We’d have to get a divorce—”

“Actually, we wouldn’t’ve.”

Lydia looked over at him at the red light. “Hmm?”

He shrugged a little. “I kinda…uh…had to change my plan after meetin’ you in the attic and when your folks were forcin’ you to show them the Maitlands. I knew how many people there were at the house. I scared off Guru Dodo and covered Delia’s eyes with that stupid hat so there would be just enough witnesses to make it technically not legal in the living world. But us sayin’ I do n’ all that is good enough for the Netherworld, so I would’ve been alive even if there was just one witness. So after I came alive and lost all my powers, I could still hightail it outta there before your daddy called the cops on me.”

Lydia pursed her lips. “You know, you’re smarter than I thought you were.”

“Aw, thanks,” Betelgeuse grinned, straightening his tie. “A lotta people think I’m stupid ‘cause of the way I talk, and I’ve never really been taught much, but, boy, I can good plan.”

To his disgruntlement, Lydia just laughed a little, and he turned to look out the window only to be met with a large wooden sign that read “Welcome to Winter River”.

“We’re…leaving?” he asked, looking back at her.

“We won’t be going far. Only about an hour away.”

“Mmm…” He lit another cigarette, and crossed his ankles down in the floorboards.

Lydia glanced over at him, frowned, and murmured, “Make sure you blow your smoke out the window. I don’t want my car smelling all smokey.”

Slowly, the ghost leaned more out the window of the car, but his cigarette was soon forgotten as he stared at the trees and telephone poles whizzing by and his hair whipping around in the wind that he couldn’t feel on his face.

“We’re going so fast!” He shouted over the wind as he tossed away his unfinished cigarette.

“Do you want me to slow down?” Lydia asked, raising her voice in hopes she’d hear him.

It still took him a moment to reply, but finally he called back, “Heck no! Faster!”

Smiling mischievously, Lydia sped up until she was well over the speed limit sign that had whisked by about ten minutes ago. Over the roar of the wind filling the car and blowing her long dark hair all around and into her face, she thought she heard the poltergeist yell something to her before letting out a loud, long whoop before pulling himself back inside.

As Lydia rolled up the windows, he looked around and exclaimed, “That was awesome!”

“Oh, so now you like cars?” Lydia chuckled.

“Ye—” he was cut off as Lydia, about to miss her turn, pulled the steering wheel suddenly to the right. “Not when you do  _ that _ .”

“Sorry…” Lydia slowed down a little as she pulled into the gravel parking lot. “Looks like we’re here already.”

Lydia got out of the car and started walking down the dirt path through the woods, and Betelgeuse quickly followed suit. “So you drove me out here to the middle of nowhere. I hate to break this to you, Lyds, but I’m already dead, so you can’t really kill me and bury me in a shallow grave.”

Turning, she walked backwards in front of him. “I’m not going to kill you, Betelgeuse. Trust me on this. You’re gonna like it—I hope.”

At that, Betelgeuse raised an eyebrow at her but followed her in silence as she led him through the woods until the trees began to become more sparse. She turned quickly, the skirt of her black dress spinning a little, and gestured for him to enter the clearing first.

“You go first,” he murmured, eyeing her up and down. “I don’t trust you.”

Sighing a little, Lydia complied and stepped out into the clearing through the trees. For a moment, he peered out at her to make sure it wasn’t a trap before also entering the clearing, and—

_ Oh…oh… _

He was standing in grass a little taller than his ankles and speckled with tiny white flowers as well as spindly purple flowers with bright orange centers and white and red-speckled decagon-shaped flowers that were growing in large clumps off of the few small trees in the clearing. Dandelions both white and yellow grew alongside the white and purple flowers, and Betelgeuse squatted down to pick one of the white ones and brush off its seeds to send them scattering in the wind.

Lydia stood a few yards away, watching him. Finally, when he didn’t move from his position, she took a few steps towards him. “Do you…like it?” she asked hesitantly.

“Oh my God, Lydia…”

Lydia swallowed as she tried to make her throat untighten. She couldn’t tell if that response was good or bad. Yes, he sounded surprised, but was it a good surprise or a bad surprise?

The chuckle that escaped him made her relax a little more, and she squatted down, too, as he rolled the dandelion stem between his fingers.

“You do like it?” she asked, but he just stood up and walked over to one of the trees with the white flowers.

“What are these?”

Lydia hurried to catch up with him. “Those are Mountain Laurels, Connecticut’s state flower.”

“They look like they’ve been bled on.”

They both laughed a little at the morbid thought before walking deeper into the clearing. Unable to hold back her hopeful curiosity, Lydia asked, “Does it look like your home when you were alive?”

Abruptly, he stopped walking and surveyed the field, and Lydia bit her lip. He wasn’t smiling. His face reminded her of her father’s whenever she talked about her mother.

“Kinda does, yeah…”

In the blink of an eye, Lydia found him lying on the ground, staring up at the sky. “I really like it here. It’s nice. Nicest place I’ve pro’lly been in…sheesh, eons.”

She sat down next to him. “They don’t have any places like this in the Neitherworld?”

“Everything’s dead there.” He gave her a pointed look.

“True…”

She let him lie there in silence, his hands folded over gut as he stared up at the white clouds slowly rolling past. Lydia herself was beginning to sweat since it was still the last stretch of summer, but she didn’t say anything. He was still looking at the sky. Had his eyes always looked that blue?

“You’ll lose years of your life here, Lyds, watching an old man like me sit here and reminisce like this.” He was grinning a little bit, but he didn’t turn his eyes to look at her. “If you’re waitin’ for me to finish, you might as well just head back to the car and summon me when you get there.”

“No, I don’t mind,” Lydia replied quietly as she tucked her chin on her knees. “I’m enjoying this as much as you are.”

Another silence passed between them. Lydia noticed the white stripes in his suit were turning a faint green as he shifted a little on the grass. They’d never been this quiet—at least, not when they were together. There were always questions or bickering filling the silence, but not this time. Now it was just quiet with the occasional break of conversation. Lydia sat unmoving with her chin on her knees as her dark eyes scanned the colorful horizon with the little trees lining the edge. Her mother would have loved this…

“This is the kinda stuff you’ll miss when you’re dead.”

“Hmm?”

Betelgeuse propped himself up on his elbow, which only turned it more green. “I said this is the kinda stuff you’ll miss when you're dead. Family’s great and stuff, but at the end of it all, they’ll be with you eventually. Little stuff like this—it moves on without you. Appreciate it.”

Sighing a little, she rested her chin on her knees. “I’ll keep that in mind for the end of this year.”

“If we don’t get married, y’mean.”

“If we don’t get married…” Lydia agreed, looking down at the jade wedding ring on her hand. 

Slowly, Betelgeuse let himself back down onto the grass, his gray-blue eyes shifting from the sky over to her, and she squirmed a little bit.

“I...kind of thought about it after you asked me that one time…” she murmured.

Laughing a little, he grinned at her and asked, “Oh yeah? You come to any conclusions?”

Lydia looked over at him and pursed her lips. “Other than deciding I want lilies to be my bouquet? No.”

“Lilies?” Betelgeuse snorted, turning his gaze back up towards the sky. “Come on. What about roses or somethin’ like that? Red roses as a little homage to our first attempt at this.” At the thought, he chuckled again, but Lydia only rolled her eyes.

“Roses represent passion and romance.” Lydia frowned a little and looked over at him. Would she ever love him? Probably not. “Besides, I’m allergic.”

“To passion? I’ve known that for a  _ long  _ time.”

Snorting, Lydia shook her head and flicked his shoulder. “To roses, you dolt.” Crossing her legs, Lydia leaned forwards and played with the flowers around her. “Lilies represent death and are used in funerals and burials. I think it’s more fitting.”

Unfortunately, the ghost didn’t seem to be listening much to her since he, too, was playing with the flowers again. He picked one of the white dandelions. “Do dandelions represent anything, Miss Flower Expert?”

“Symbolism is your thing, you tell me!” Lydia replied, picking a puffball of her own. 

“I’m stumped,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “When I was a kid, we used to wish on dandelions. There’s a bunch of superstitions about ‘em.”

Lydia sighed a little as she ran her finger over her puffball so lightly no seeds were dislodged. “I know it’s kind of childish, but...do we have many options?”

The poltergeist threw back his head and laughed. “Guess not! You go first.”

“Fine.” 

Lydia drew the dandelion closer to her mouth and closed her eyes. She had done this plenty of times when she was a kid; her mother always made sure she used her proper dandelion-wishing etiquette. But now she just felt a little silly as she felt Betelgeuse’s eyes upon her. 

“I can’t.” She shook her head and lowered the dandelion, though she kept it close as to shield it from the wind. “I can’t think of anything to wish for.”

Betelgeuse raised an eyebrow. “I’m skeptical ‘bout that, but if you’re too embarrassed, I’ll go first.” 

It didn’t take long. Lydia watched in surprise as he thought for a moment, staring down at the flower rather than closing his eyes. His expression was that of a man threatening death to the one he was sharing his secret with. After a moment, he blew out his dandelion, and the two watched as the seeds drifted off with the wind until they were out of sight. He glanced back down at his dandelion, noticing the one or two stubborn seeds that had clung to the flower, and looked immensely displeased before blowing them into the wind as well. 

“There, it’s not that hard. Now you go. Remember to keep the wish small, too. Flowers can only do so much for ya.” 

Lydia looked back down at her dandelion. For a moment, she had considered wishing to be spared from both the wedding in the sandworms, but if the dandelion wish could only do so much… What was something small she could ask for? 

“I still can’t think of anything…” she murmured, looking over at him. “What did you wish for?”

“Can’t tell ya. It won’t come true if I do.”

She sighed and frowned at him. “Come on, Betelgeuse.”

“Oh, alright.” He shifted up into a sitting position and leaned back on his hands. “I wished that we’d make it outta this alive--well...in your case. I’d still be dead, but you get the gist. We already have a fifty percent chance; I just wanted to raise the odds.”

Lydia nodded and looked back at her dandelion. 

_ ‘I wish...I wish…’ _ She glanced over at Betelgeuse, catching him staring at her. When she did, he frowned and looked away.  _ ‘I wish that… Oh, what can you do to help, little flower?’  _ She twirled the flower between her fingers.  _ ‘Betelgeuse said to ask for something small, but everything going on feels so big…’  _ She stared down at the flower before sighing slightly and closing her eyes like her mother taught her to do.  _ ‘I wish that even if I have to marry someone I don’t love, I’ll still be happy. I hope that’s not too much to ask, dandelion.’ _

With that, she drew the dandelion closer to her lips and blew, quickly opening her eyes to watch the seeds dance off after the other Betelgeuse’s seeds. Unlike Betelgeuse’s flower, she had managed to remove all the seeds from her flower in one breath. 

“Quid pro quo,” Betelgeuse snarked once the seeds had disappeared.

Blushing, Lydia turned away. “I don’t think I should.”

“If you don’t, it won’t come true.”

“I thought that telling would make it not come true.”

He stretched himself out on the grass once again. “Not if you're with a friend. And if one tells, the other’s got to. Secret pact n’ all that.”

“Mm-hmm. Somehow I’m doubting you,” Lydia replied.

“No, no, that’s how it works. Besides, quid pro quo.”

“Fine…” Lydia sighed deeper, not looking at him even though he was looking at her. “I...was...um… I wished that...uh...I’d be happy...in the future…”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Is that too much to wish for from a flower?” Lydia asked, wringing her hands. Perhaps she was taking this all too seriously, but, then again, her mother always took wishing dead seriously. “It’s not a very specific wish or anything like you had…”

Pondering for a moment, the poltergeist looked back up at the sky. “Nah… That’s a good wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! Lydia and Beej have finally started considering themselves friends (at long last). What will they call their relationship at the end of the next 9 months? Don't be afraid to comment; they're my favorite thing to see when I post my work :D!


	16. On the Other Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I get to deliver another promise I made in the tags! It's a bit of a strange one, seeing as this is the movieverse, but I couldn't resist putting it in my story. Hope ya'll enjoy!

It was no secret that Betelgeuse hated the shower. He hated the way water felt on his skin and hair, and he hated how cold he felt stepping out of the steaming hot water and into the chill of the foggy bathroom, especially as it was beginning to cool down with the fall. But most of all, he hated how contemplative being in the shower was. Every time he passed by the bathroom while Lydia was showering, he could just picture her ruminating on everything that was going on. And hours would pass by. She enjoyed it! Can you imagine?

If anyone knew anything at all, they would know that one of the things Betelgeuse hated more than showering was thinking. He tried to skate around his afterlife with as little thought as possible. The less the better. The only time he would really think would be if he was planning something. That wasn’t so bad. But the shower, ooh, that shower. That’s when you start thinking about things that shouldn’t be thought about: life and purpose and what you should have said in that argument 354 years ago but didn’t. It was enough to make him want to fit himself in that hair-clogged drain and never come out no matter how Lydia or Barbara coaxed. 

Betelgeuse caught himself brooding and angrily shut off the water of the shower. Barbara had promised him she’d help him get the grass stains out of his striped suit if he showered, so he had no other choice to comply. He had ignored the green splotches for too long. How much time had passed? Blast these showers! 

The bathroom mirror was all fogged up, a bad sign since it usually only completely fogged after thirty minutes or more. Grumbling, Betelgeuse shoved on a pair of shorts and wiped his hand across the mirror to get a better look at his face, though translucent and hazy in the glass’s reflection. The crease just above his scowling brows was deeper than it had been before, and he needed to shave. He couldn’t say he had shaved since he arrived at the Deetzes’ house, but, being dead, facial hair grew at a snail’s pace. Still, his five-o-clock shadow was anything but designer stubble, so it had to go. 

Just as he was fishing his trusty shaving knife out of the many pockets of his black and maroon bathrobe, Betelgeuse glanced up to see a face that wasn’t his ugly mug in the mirror, and he jumped back, the knife flying out of his hand and imbedding itself into the adjacent wall. 

“Did I scare you?” a familiar sharp yet warm giggle cut through the mist. 

“Tina!” Betelgeuse snapped, leering so closely to the mirror his nose almost touched the glass as the green-skinned beauty queen just smiled at him. “Don’t do that!”

“So I did scare you!”

“No, you didn’t!”

Miss Argentina gazed at him while Betelgeuse angrily tossed the robe around himself. As his hands fumbled to tie the fabric belt into a secure knot, he heard her titter again, and he glanced up, glowering at her grinning, permanently dolled-up features. 

“What?”

“Why are you angry, Be-attle-joose?” she leaned forward, her elbows resting on the desk before her. 

“‘M not.” He gave the belt a tug to test it before shoving his hands in his pockets. 

This only made her roll her dark eyes like she always used to when they worked side by side, chained in their cubicles. “Like it isn’t obvious. Your hair is all red, see?”

She disappeared for a moment, and the poltergeist caught a glimpse of the wet mop of hair dripping down his shoulders. Sure enough, the scraggly roots of his hair showed a bright vermillion red before they faded away to the bleach blond of the rest of his hair. This only made him grumble and curse more as he reached up to cover his exposed roots. 

“The Deetzes better have bleach.”

“Using cleaning bleach isn’t good for you, Be-attle,” Miss Argentina reminded him as she reappeared in the mirror. “If you want, I could do it.”

“Even if I could get back to the Waiting Room, Juno’d kill me, an’ you know that.”

Miss Argentina pouted. “What she doesn’t know won’t kill her...again. Besides, I already opened the mirror for you. Come on, it’ll be fun, and you don’t want  _ tu chica  _ seeing that mess, do you?” She waved a stiletto nail at Betelgeuse’s hair; it was quickly fading into red as the magic fought the years-old bleach, which was finally giving out after the shower.

Slowly, Betelgeuse brought down his hands and stared at the crimson strands of hair caught between his fingers. “...alright, fine.” 

Sure enough, when he touched the mirror, his hand sunk in, and the reflective surface rippled like water. Slender fingers wrapped around his and helped pull him into the chill of the Netherworld Waiting Room. On the other side, Miss Argentina sat chained to her chair, her freezing hand still holding onto his.

“You’re warm, Be-attle. Come--” she tapped the arms of the chair, and the chains released her slowly. As she got up, the seat of the chair opened into a drooling maw, and she tossed in a morsel of the dry frozen ice cream from a bag on the desk. “There you go. I’ll be back in an hour. Shift change!” 

A groan echoed from the back, and a flattened man with a tire mark running across his front shuffled in and sat down at the chair, which had closed its mouth after swallowing its treat. 

Quickly, Miss Argentina latched onto Betelgeuse’s hand and dragged him through the bustle back room of ghosts sorting files and carrying boxes to a back room. 

“Sit here.” She gestured at a half-broken chair before digging into a red locker with the name “Maria Alverez” sharpied on the front. “Ah-- _ ahí estás _ ! You still want blond? What about red?” Pulling out a bottle of both ginger and light blond hair dye, she rushed back to him, rocking forward on the toes of her red high heels.

Betelgeuse grunted. “What, you wanna be twins?”

“I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to be twins with me,” Miss Argentina snarked back as she set down the red hair dye and opened up the bottle of blond hair dye instead. “You’re so boring, Be-attle. So samey-samey.”

“Can’t change my hair now, Mimi,” he replied, leaning back in the chair and making it squeak. “I’d have to redo all my branding!”

“ _ Hmph _ . To the Lost Souls Room with branding, I want to see you in ginger!” Setting down the bottle, she scrubbed her hands through his hair, her nails scratching lightly at his scalp. “I like green, though.” 

“Stars…” Again, Betelgeuse reached up and attempted to cover his hair, which was now a bright green. “How do I keep gettin’ pinned with these stupid curses?”

“I think it’s cute!” she giggled as she prepped the hair dye. “Didn’t you get the colorful hair from Juno? After that one time you went to Dante’s Inferno instead of spending the night with her?”

Clearing his throat, the poltergeist sank down a little as his pale cheeks struggled to flush. “Yep. What a walk of shame that was.” 

Although he said it like a punchline, Miss Argentina did not laugh. She wrapped a towel around his shoulders and watched him fidget in the chair. 

“She doesn’t know I’m here, right?”

“No, I don’t think so. And even if she did, well...not even Juno would want to send you to the Sandworms early.”

Betelgeuse scoffed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“She doesn’t hate you, Be-attle, even though you try to say she does. How does your hair tangle so much? It’s so thin!” Scowling, Miss Argentina raked the comb through Betelgeuse’s wet hair.

“I think-- _ ow _ \--she’s hated me since the day-- _ OW _ \--I keeled over,” he remarked, grinding his teeth a little. 

“Then why’d she make you her assistant, hmm? Why’d she make you her...you know…? Flame, you called it.”

“Well… I’ve had a lot of flames over the past couple centuries…”

This only made Miss Argentina’s bright red lips curve into a deeper frown. “Yes, but you and Juno were together a lot. I remember when you were her assistant I saw you every day walking back to your locker in only--”

Betelgeuse cleared his throat loudly when another ghost abruptly drifted into the locker room, a toaster dragging behind her by the cord melted to her bath towel. She gave the two a dead eyed stare as Miss Argentina continued to apply the dye to Betelgeuse’s now reddish purple hair.

Once the ghost had left, Miss Argentina let out a loud sigh as she turned him around in the chair. “There. You’ll have to wait for it to dry, but the colors should be gone now.” Her eyes flitted around his face, and she grinned. “You look kinda cute when your hair is slicked back.”

“Aha. Very funny, Mimi,” Betelgeuse murmured as he stood and preened best he could in the shattered mirror hanging on the wall next to the lockers, adjusting his loose robe. 

“Your  _ prometida  _ does not think so?” Miss Argentina frowned.

Immediately, Betelgeuse’s busy hands halted, and he stared at the mirror. “Well...uh...she, uh…” Clearing his throat he put his hands on his hips and shoved his shoulders back. “She probably does, yeah!”

He watched her out of one of the less-broken shards of the mirror; she was staring at him. 

“You’re not usually so...em... _ unsure _ ?” Slowly, she slid off of the counter she was sitting on and approached him. “Is she not good to you, Betelgeuse? She gives you no kisses?”

Betelgeuse snorts. “I think she’d rather die than kiss me.”

He gets a scoff in return. “Well, she doesn’t know what she’s missing. But she will eventually, eh?” Tossing him a grin, Miss Argentina playfully elbowed Betelgeuse’s paunch. 

“Eventually,” Betelgeuse murmured as he began to inspect himself in the mirror again. “I mean, we have to kiss at the wedding, right? ...Right?”

He was doubting himself now. Stars, why now? He’s not in the shower anymore! They had to kiss, right? At the very end? That was still a part of marriages, right? It was still a part of marriage when he was alive, so has it changed, or is he just stupid? Lydia seemed to be pretty confident about it, but she had forgotten about it completely before he had brought it up. What if it wasn’t anymore? 

Thankfully, Miss Argentina offered him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “I’m pretty sure, yes.” Her hand still resting on his shoulder, Miss Argentina looked up at him and frowned. “You’re nervous.”

Growling, Betelgeuse reached up and covered his hair, but Miss Argentina pulled his hands down. “You aren’t changing colors again, Be-attle. I can just tell.” When he gave her an incredulous look, she just sighed and pulled him over to a filing cabinet. “Here, you sort and tell me what you’re thinking about.”

He snorted with laughter. “I don’t work here, Mimi. I don’t have to sort anymore.”

“Yes, but it helps you relax, doing brainless things, brainless.” She tapped his forehead. “Now talk.” 

The poltergeist grumbled a little and began to sort the files reverse alphabetically. “I dunno… I just...never really thought I’d get married again, yanno what I mean?”

“You’ve tried to marry her once before, did you not?” 

“Yeah…” he murmured, pausing to run a hand through his dried hair. “But that doesn’t really count. I didn’t think I’d be…” 

He just sighed and held up his left hand, and Miss Argentina nodded at the sight of the familiar red mark on his left ring finger. “You’re afraid of it being like Before.”

He returned with an angry snort as he crinkled a file shoving it back into the cabinet. “Afraid’s a strong word, missy.”

“And it’s how you’re feeling!” Miss Argentina insisted. Even dead, she felt her eyes begin to burn with tears. “I don’t need your tattletail hair to tell me that! You’re just afraid of getting hurt again--!”

In the blink of an eye, the filing cabinet was tipped over, its files dumped across the floor. Betelgeuse stood over it with his chest heaving before slowly lowering himself into his chair, and Miss Argentina just stared at him as she knelt to scoop up the files and re-sort them silently.

“...sorry…”

Miss Argentina looked up at him. Even with his hair newly dyed, she could have sworn she saw traces of purple still in there somewhere. Closing the cabinet, she sighed, reached over, and ran her fingers through his hair.

“No, I’m sorry, Be-attle,” she replied. “It just...hurts me to see you like this. You do not have your...what is it?...spunk. All the life has been sucked out of you...what little you had left, anyway.” Leaning against his legs, she rested her hands in his lap and asked, “Is she as bad as...the other one?”

The tinges of purple that Miss Argentina could see peeking through his hair slowly faded, and she squinted to see what color they were now. “No...no, she’s not bad. She’s good.”

“ _ Good _ ? Then why does she make you feel this way?”

Just as abruptly as he had knocked over the filing cabinet, Betelgeuse stood and paced around the room. “She’s not like anybody I’ve ever met before, Mimi. She’s different, she’s...she’s…”

“Be-attle…” Miss Argentina whispered, rising to her feet. “You said Juno was different. You said  _ I _ was different. And where did we get you? Nowhere.”

Slowly, Betelgeuse reached into his pocket and pulled out the small posie Lydia had left on her vanity just a few weeks ago when she had taken him to that place that reminded him of home. The flowers were dry now and as fragile as glass, their small white petals shredding off just from his touch. 

“She’s different from how she was,” Betelgeuse remarked, turning with the wilting flowers still in hand. “She doesn’t wanna see me dead anymore.”

“But she doesn’t love you, Be-attle,” Miss Argentina stressed as she approached him with worried eyes. “How can you be married to someone who doesn’t love you? I don’t want you to be stuck for eternity in a marriage like...like you had Before.”

Grunting, Betelgeuse closed his fist around the flowers and tucked them back inside his pocket. “Yeah, I guess…”

Miss Argentina smiled a little and patted his arm. “I’m sure it’ll turn out alright, though. Maybe you won’t have to marry her after all.”

A sudden chill seeped into the room from underneath the doorframe, and the two ghosts shivered. “Is that…?”

“Crawling back so soon? And indecent, as always, Betelgeuse.” 

Whipping around, Betelgeuse and Miss Argentina found themselves only a few feet away from Juno, who leaned against a window that only had bricks to offer for its view as she smoked her cigar. 

The poltergeist grunted and bared his teeth at her. “I was just leavin’.”

“What a shame,” Juno sighed as smoke puffed out from both her mouth and slitted neck. “Usually when you come over here dressed like that, you want something.”

“Juno…” Miss Argentina began, but she trailed off, too fearful of her superior to stand up for Betelgeuse, who was now peering around for any reflective surface to hop through. 

“I assume if you’re here, things aren’t going well with your little...mortal pet? Perhaps you would rather the Sandworms to a fate such as that?”

Betelgeuse paused just before the window where he could see his disheveled reflection glaring back at him. “We’re  _ fine _ , Juno.”

Juno merely tossed her head as she brushed past Miss Argentina towards the door. “If you say so. But, if you ever do change your mind, perhaps I could consider sparing your miserable little afterlife...for a price, of course.” 

Betelgeuse felt a tingle run up his spine as he cringed under the weight of Juno’s gaze. Glancing back at Miss Argentina, he dove through the mirror back to the living world. 

If his thoughts and what little emotions he had left being jumbled about didn’t help his magic, then exiting the Netherworld through a different opening certainly wasn’t going to help either. He landed quite unceremoniously on the floor of the living room, chin-first. Groaning, he hauled himself completely out of the portal so he was lying on the floor. The air of the Deetzes house was sweltering compared to the Waiting Room, especially since the heater was blasting to combat the chilly autumn air of Connecticut outside.

Betelgeuse pulled his robe tighter around himself and stood. The house was so quiet… The Maitlands were pretty quiet, but there was no shrill of Delia’s voice, no quivering exclamations of Charles, or calm murmur of Lydia. Maybe they went out for a little ‘outing’, whatever breathers did for fun nowadays. They’d better not go further than a mile... 

Slowly, he slunk into the kitchen but stumbled back when he saw Charles standing at the counter, his back turned to the rest of the kitchen. Unfortunately, when Betelgeuse looked up from almost falling over one of the stools at the island, their eyes met, and Charles gave him a thin-lipped smile. Betelgeuse swallowed nervously. _ Oh boy...  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Writing Miss Argentina was challenging but fun, and I love her and Betelgeuse's friendship. However, aside from Juno, Betelgeuse will have to go through a conversation with someone he was hoping to avoid: Charles. See ya'll next chapter!


	17. Man to Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Left you on a bit of a cliffhanger, huh? Let's fix that! Betelgeuse is usually a fast-talking, smooth-as-butter son of a gun, but when plopped down in front of his future father-in-law in nothing but a robe and shorts, he kind of loses his cool.

The two men continued to stare at each other until Betelgeuse cleared his throat and scuffed his bare foot on the tile floor. The same four letter word kept repeating in his mind as he considered his next move. He could just make a break for the stairs or teleport away. It would be as simple as snapping his fingers, and he would be gone. 

Charles was the first one to speak, “Lydia was looking for you earlier.” 

Screaming internally, Betelgeuse slowly nodded. He should have just said something! Now the conversation was on the last thing he wanted to discuss with Charles: Lydia! “Oh, uh...yeah. I should probably go look for her now.”

He began his retreat to the stairs, but Charles called after him, “You won’t find her.”

Pausing at the base of the stairs, the poltergeist pouted and gave Charles an indignant look. “I could if I  _ wanted  _ to.” 

When the living man shrugged and went back to whatever living activity he was up to, Betelgeuse looked back up the staircase and listened. The house was still completely silent besides the quiet murmur of the Maitlands’ voices. Finally, he gave a dramatic sigh and floated back over to Charles.

“Alright, I’ll bite. Where is she?”

“Shopping with Delia,” Charles replied as Betelgeused peered over his shoulder and noticed him mixing drinks. Charles couldn’t help but shudder when he saw the poltergeist lick his chops like a hungry coyote. When Betelgeuse’s expression turned to one of confusion, Charles added, “Delia’s been thinking about the wedding ceremony, and she decided that maybe planning a little bit of it with Lydia would help her feel a little better about it.”

Betelgeuse leaned on the counter space next to Charles and refused to look at him. For a moment, he had forgotten that this man was going to be his father-in-law in less than a year. The air between them was thick with awkwardness. Should he apologize to Charles for attacking him in a snake form or trying to marry his at the time underage daughter? 

Then again, if Charles wasn’t such a cowardly bundle of nerves, Betelgeuse might have been afraid of losing his head. At six feet four inches, Charles was a good half a head taller than Betelgeuse, who tended to avoid men taller and possibly stronger than him. Unfortunately, that accounted for both Adam and Charles, so he was a little stuck. 

Feeling something bump against his elbow, Betelgeuse looked down to see a filled crystal glass sitting next to his arm. Charles paid no mind, and Betelgeuse scowled.  _ What was Chuckie trying to do here? _

“So you stayed behind, huh?” he grunted, taking the glass and sniffing it. It wasn’t poisoned, unfortunately. 

“Shopping isn’t really my forte. Besides, Delia’s shopping trips can, um...run a little long. I’ve been caught in one too many.” 

Betelgeuse chuckled a little and nodded before finally getting the gall to take a sip. He couldn’t lie: it wasn’t bad. “You do this a lot?”

Charles shrugged. “Only when I know Delia is stressed about something, and she usually is when she shops with Lydia. They have very different tastes.”

“You can say that again,” Betelgeuse snorted. “Good thing you don’t do the same, though, or you’d be a regular alcoholic.”

This earned him a laugh, and Betelgeuse let out an inward sigh as the tension in the air dissipated just a little. However, it only helped so much. Betelgeuse was used to having women whose fathers didn’t affect them. Lydia was different, as usual. And the fact that he would be marrying and spending the rest of his unnatural afterlife with her...well, he was stuck to this family like tar and feathers to a loyalist in the 1760s. It’s not like he could just tolerate a few strict lectures from Charles before running off to find a new flame. As much as he hated to say it, he was in it for the long haul. A haul that wouldn’t ever end. He shuddered.

Sensing Betelgeuse’s discomfort, Charles put his things away and waved for the poltergeist to follow him as he walked into the living room, and Betelgeuse followed reluctantly. Although Charles gestured for him to sit on the couch with him, Betelgeuse remained standing, leaned against the wall near the window. He didn’t trust Charles as far as he could throw him, and that wasn’t going to change just because he gave him a drink and was the father of his fiancée. 

“What’s this all about, Chuck?”

Charlies sighed a little and took a sip of his drink before setting it on the coffee table. “Well, I had been hoping to talk with you for some time now. But I never really, um...got the chance until now. Lydia’s been keeping you busy.” 

“Eh.” Shrugging, Betelgeuse kept his eye on the other man. Any second now…

Charles looked up at him. Those bright blue eyes that were often widened with terror or nervousness were now oddly calm in the face of a poltergeist. Betelgeuse frowned. That is, unless Charles didn’t see him as a poltergeist; that would be an unfortunate underestimation of his future son-in-law. 

“I have to be blunt here, Mr…?” Charles trailed off and looked at Betelgeuse, hopeful that he would fill in the blank.

“Shaggoth.”

“I have to be blunt here, Mr. Shaggoth.” Charles leaned forward a little in his seat, his hands tented. Gone was the nervous bird-watching father that Betelgeuse knew previously. This was a businessman. Betelgeuse was never fond of businessmen.

Whoop, here it was. “You don’t want a dead guy in the family?” Betelgeuse guessed as he sat down on the windowsill, his legs crossed at the ankle as he balanced his weight. 

“Well, that’s not a problem. After all, the Maitlands have been in our family for a very long time, and we love them, and--”

Betelgeuse rolled his eyes. “Get to the point.”

“What I’m  _ trying  _ to say here,” Charles sighed, “is that--”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I did try to marry your daughter that one time. You know, when she was fourteen and I was--well, we won’t mention that part. But, hey, I mean, at least I didn’t get away with it right?” Betelgeuse interrupted, trying not to chuckle at Charles’s baffled frustration.

“Please, just listen!” He raised his voice for the first time Betelgeuse had known him, and the ghost pressed himself against the window pane. “I don’t care that you’re dead, and I have no choice even if I don’t like...that you did what you did all those years ago, and now you’re…” 

Charles rubbed his forehead with one hand and fumbled for his glass with the other. When his hand bumped into it, threatening to knock it over, Betelgeuse cleared his throat and waved his hand, and the glass straightened into Charles’s hand. The mortal drank. Betelgeuse stared down at the amber liquid in his own glass, which he held against his chest. 

“The point to all this,” Charles finished as he set down his empty glass, “is that I want to know… You aren’t exactly what I had pictured for my little girl, but now I don’t have any other choice than to give her to you. So...I want to know you’re going to treat her the way...the way I’ve always hoped her husband would treat her.” 

Betelgeuse’s throat felt tight when he felt Charles’s stare not break from him, and he took a sip of his own drink to try and divert his attention. 

“That’s right.” Charles nodded. “Barbara told me everything. She told me about your previous advances on her. She also told me about the brothel. Dante’s Inferno, I think she said it was called?”

Betelgeuse waved a hand at him. “I don’t do it any _ more _ ...yanno?”

Charles’s incredulous look didn’t change. “I trust Barbara,” he said. “I trust her to tell me if you pull anything with her. But I don’t think I trust you quite yet.” 

“So what d’ya want me to say?”

Standing up, Charles walked towards the stairs. “Come on. There’s something you need to see.” 

Betelgeuse let out a mixture of a sigh and a groan. “Chuckie, if you’re tryin’ to take me to your office to kill me mob boss style, yer outta luck. Somebody beat ya to it.”

This made Charles chuckle, but, unlike before, it only sent chills up Betelgeuse’s spine, something not easily done. How was this maudlin little property investor giving him more heebie-jeebies than the worst-of-the-worst in the Neitherworld? 

Up the stairs, past the bedrooms, and around the corner, they finally arrived in, as Betelgeuse predicted, Charles’s office. However, Charles didn’t pull a gun or start on some long speech like Betelgeuse expected him to. He just gave him that familiar watery smile and nodded, and the poltergeist slowly walked deeper into the office. 

Charles’s office was fancier than Betelgeuse imagined it to be. Sure, it was all wood and had a rustic feel to it, but even Betelgeuse, who had lived in dumps so horrible they fell apart while he was sleeping in it, knew that it cost a pretty penny. 

Catching himself admiring the office, Betelgeuse huffed angrily and turned around. “So?”

Again, Charles was silent as he entered. He sat down at his desk and just pointed at a tall shelf with one hand as he looked over some other papers. As Betelgeuse’s eyes followed his finger, he felt himself being drawn towards the shelf just from the raw emotional power emanating off of it. Something about this shelf...but what was it? 

A pair of brown eyes met his. Then ten more sets of brown eyes. He took a step back, disoriented, until he realized what he was looking at. Photographs. The entire shelf was filled with photographs. These weren’t photos Lydia took, no; these were photographs taken  _ of  _ Lydia. 

Lydia on her first birthday with bright red cupcake frosting all over her mouth and hands, making her look like a baby zombie that just had its first kill. 

Lydia sometime in the summer, no older than ten, covered in suds and drenched with water as she slid down a slip-n’-slide. The inside of her wide open mouth was bright blue from the popsicle she had eaten, the blue-stained stick still clenched in her fist.

His eyes wandered down the shelf to the others. In these pictures of Lydia, he could tell it was after his incident. She looked more mature. Plus the big shiny balloon reading “Sweet Sixteen” in one of the pictures gave him a clue. She was sitting with two girls, one with bright red hair and coke-bottle glasses, the other with braces on her huge teeth. Bertha and Prudence, the girls he met at the reunion. This was  _ them _ , them when they were best friends with Lydia. 

There was one with Lydia in one of those stupid-looking graduation gowns and caps. She had a huge smile on her face, though, relieved to be finally finished with high school. She had forgotten all about him, probably. Stars, why did that thought make his stomach twist up? It’s not like she wanted to remember him back then. 

Behind him, Charles cleared his throat, and Betelgeuse jumped, hurriedly repositioning the pictures as to how they were before he went through them. They went back downstairs silently, just as how they went up. 

When they were finally back in the living room, Charles looked down at Betelgeuse and asked, “Do you know why I showed you that?”

Betelgeuse hesitated. So many answers, and many of them wrong. He went with his safest bet: “Uh...no?”

Charles let out a deep sigh, and Betelgeuse cringed. 

“I showed you that for a very important reason.” He rested a hand on Betelgeuse’s shoulder, and the ghost flinched. For a moment, Charles’s attention was diverted as he gave Betelgeuse a strange look before continuing. “I showed you those pictures because I want you to see Lydia for what she really is: a person. Not some...object.”

Betelgeuse’s throat went drier than it usually was, and he glanced around nervously. He did not like the way this conversation was turning out, especially now that Charles was starting to squeeze the shoulder that his hand was resting on. 

“I want you to promise me that when you and Lydia are married, you won’t even  _ think  _ about her or another woman the wrong way. Understood?”

If Betelgeuse were alive, his heart would have been beating fast. Heck, he could have sworn he felt it jerk a few times as it sank into his stomach. “Got it.” 

Giving a small nod, Charles shuffled back to the kitchen as Betelgeuse heard a car rumble up the driveway through the window’s glass pane. 

Lydia pushed open the door with a groan as the two loads of bags hanging off her arms dug into her skin. As gently as she could, she placed the bags on the table before taking off her purse, which felt like it was also entrenched into the soft space between her shoulder and neck. Delia came in close behind, her arms equally full of bags. 

Her father was, as he usually was when she and Delia came back from long shopping trips, sitting at the counter with some mixed drinks with him. Knowing after all these years of shopping with Delia, Lydia gave her reddened arms one last shake before taking her leave to the living room where--

She stopped dead in her tracks in the living room doorway. “Beej?”

There, standing next to the window, was a sight she never thought she’d see again in her life: Betelgeuse in a robe and little else. The last time she had seen him like that it had been when he…

_ No. No, no, no.  _

She looked up at Betelgeuse’s face. It was a mixture of conflict and bewilderment and...were the roots of his hair  _ purple _ ? Squinting a little to get a closer look without approaching, Lydia suddenly found herself staring into his eyes as he looked up. As soon as she let go of the breath she was holding, he was gone in a dim flash of light.

Slowly, Lydia trudged up the stairs to her room. Part of her wanted to go to her parents, but they were probably not in the mood for conversation. Another part of her wanted to go and cry in the arms of the Maitlands, but the thought of them thinking about moving out still stung. 

She found herself in her room, not remembering the long journey up the stairs. She still wanted to cry, but she bit back her tears as she dug through her closet and pulled out the dusty, wrinkled red wedding dress that she had shoved back there ten years ago when her father told her they couldn’t burn it. Straightening it out on her bed, Lydia cried silently as she began to compare it to the reds of the necklace and earrings her step-mother bought for her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Betelgeuse learns a little more about his fiancée, and Lydia, well...she may have gotten the wrong impression.


	18. Maybe It's You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, this chapter was a roller coaster to write! But there are definitely some steps taken in this chapter, and I hope you enjoy!

“No, just--no! I can’t believe this!” Lydia insisted.

“You can’t do this to us!” Betelgeuse yelled, half-hiding behind Lydia.

Delia frowned as she turned to face the pair in the doorway. “I think it’ll be good for you two to spend some time together on your own. Pretend that this is the real deal and you're married now. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Walking down the steps of the porch, Delia hoisted her suitcase into the trunk of her husband’s car. “Charles and I are going to go visit New York for a day. We’ll be back before you know it.” 

Lydia clutched the doorframe. “And you honestly think we’ll survive?”

“Don’t worry, sweetie! If you feel like you’re going to kill each other, just call me!” 

With that, Delia hopped into the car with Charles, and they sped off as Betelgeuse and Lydia stuck by the doorframe, watching with dismay. Lydia sighed slowly and looked over at the poltergeist next to her.

“I guess this is our chance to...practice being married,” Lydia murmured. 

She was rewarded with a nervous grin, “Or I could just hang out in the Neitherworld for the rest of the day?”

Lydia inhaled sharply and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him back inside. “Don’t you  _ dare _ ! If we’re going to be stuck together for the rest of our unnatural lives, then we need to be prepared for what it’s going to be like.” 

Grunting, Betelgeuse wriggled out of her grasp. “Alright, fine!” He tossed his hands up in the air defeatedly. “So now what are we gonna do?”

“You ask me like I  _ know _ ? I’ve never been married before.”

Upstairs in the attic, the Maitlands sensed a presence by the doorway as they read together on the couch. When they got up and looked around, they realized not only Betelgeuse but also Lydia were sheepishly standing in the doorway. 

“Oh...hey, guys, um… Is something up?” Adam asked, leaning against the back of the couch.

The pair looked at each other, still looking nervous, which, in turn, was making the Maitlands quite unnerved as well. After a moment, the poltergeist nudged Lydia forward and cleared his throat extra loudly. She shot him a scowl before sighing and saying, “So...um… How do you do the married thing?”

Adam and Barbara looked at each other. “What?”

“Basically Debbie and Chuck abandoned us to figure crap out,” Betelgeuse explained, a hint of whine to his voice. “But we don’t know what kinda crap we need to figure out.”

Barbara smiled softly. “So you’re looking for advice?”

Lydia nodded. “Yes, please!” 

“Well, Adam?” Barbara chuckled, looking over at her husband. “What do you think is the most important thing that’s kept us together for so long?”

“Huh…” Adam sat down on the edge of the table with the model town. “For me, it would probably be to always respect each other and...learn the art of compromise.” 

Barbara nodded. “And never give up on each other, no matter what. And have some adventures while you can. Adam and I...we never really took that risk, and now we can’t exactly get the chance to.” Looking down at her shoes, she scuffed the floor with them, and Lydia frowned, also looking away.

Adam was squeezing her hand, which helped Barbara smile a little more. “But the most important thing I think is to never stop being friends.”

Lydia looked back at Betelgeuse. They had just barely started being friends. How was this ever going to work? Despite feeling disheartened, Lydia smiled and nodded before silently passing by Betelgeuse in the doorway and heading downstairs. He watched her go for a moment before winking at the Maitlands and diving after her. 

It took him a moment or two to find her--how on earth had she gone so far so quickly? But soon, he encountered her in the kitchen. Since he had come upon the doorway and seen her so suddenly, he scrambled to a stop, grabbing the doorframe. 

Lydia sat on a stool at the island, somehow curling her small frame into a ball on top of the stool. Though it was quiet, Betelgeuse could still hear a faint sniffling noise. 

_ Oh boy… _

Slowly, he floated closer, hesitating when he drew near. After a moment of lingering by her side, he reached forward and stiffly patted her on the shoulder. “Whatsa matter, Liddybug?”

The warm nickname startled her out of her ball rather than the impersonal touch he gave her. Scrubbing her eyes, she sighed and stared down at the dappled marble counter of the island. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.” 

She was rewarded for her standoffishness with a raised eyebrow, but the poltergeist said nothing. It wasn’t like he knew what  _ to  _ say, after all. 

“Suppose they didn’t leave any leftovers, did they?” he murmured as he stuck his head into the fridge. 

Lydia wiped her eyes and looked up at him. “No… We finished the last of the leftovers yesterday…” she croaked, her throat still tight.

Grunting, the poltergeist phased into the cabinets, and Lydia watched in surprise as a box of noodles, canned tomato sauce, and several spices pushed their way out of the cabinets and danced over to the counters in a Matilda-like fashion. An impossibly long rubber hose arm decked in his familiar black and white striped sleeve stretched out of the cabinet and opened the fridge, fishing out parmesan cheese and a couple extra tomatoes. 

Despite her feelings, Lydia found herself giggling at the absurdity of it all. “What are you doing?”

The hand turned towards her, tossed the ingredients over on the counter, and said, miming the way a mouth would move, “Making  _ you  _ dinner. You’re welcome.” 

“You...can cook?” Lydia asked in disbelief as Betelgeuse slowly reappeared next to the counter as his arm retracted to a normal length and regained its joints. 

He folds his arms and scoffs. “How’dya think I made it this far? Ghosts’ve gotta eat too, yanno.” 

“Could’ve fooled me. I figured you were the kind of guy who would only eat one thing…” she slipped off of her stool and looked over the ingredients. “And since the only thing I’ve seen you eat before were cockroaches…” 

“Oh--yeah, you weren’t there for the fly.” He flashed a toothy grin at her, and Lydia groaned, holding her stomach.

“Can we not talk about eating bugs before dinner?” She shuddered and started to get out a pot for the noodles. 

“What about garbage?” he chuckled, floating after her. “I’ve eaten that, too!” 

Shoving the pot in his arms, Lydia replied, “How about we talk about eating...whatever we’re making.” 

“Spaghetti Pomodoro.”

Lydia rested her hands on her hips as she gazed up at him skeptically. While he wasn’t paying much attention to her, he did toss her one or two glances as he filled the pot with water. “Look, you get a lot of different names for stuff when you can only make pasta.” 

“Explains the gut,” Lydia murmured, shrugging as she grabbed a knife to cut the tomatoes. 

It didn’t take long for Lydia to notice something off about the silence that passed. Just as she started to turn around to look at him, she found the open mouth of the pot coming down towards her head, and an impossible amount of water sloshed out in a wave, soaking her from head to toe. Giving a short shriek, Lydia stood frozen for a moment before wiping her bangs out of her eyes. Betelgeuse was doubled over, snorting with laughter. 

“BETELGEUSE!” Lydia screamed in fury, which only made him cackle. 

He snapped his fingers, evaporating the water from the floor but not off of her. “Think of that as payback for dumping me in the pool. Don’t worry your pretty little head over it.”

“ _ Don’t worry about it _ \--I’m soaked!” Shivering, she tried to shake off the water, but it clung to her like glue. 

“Well, why don’t you go take a shower or something? I’ll probably be done when you come back down.” 

Lydia huffed a sigh and glared at the back of the poltergeist, who was too busy refilling his pot to acknowledge her. As he whistled innocently and placed the pot on the stove, Lydia stomped upstairs. It would be easy to just change clothes and wipe off her running makeup, but then she would have to go back downstairs and risk being pranked again. 

Gathering clothes, she headed towards the bathroom. Even from upstairs, she could hear him whistling a jaunty tune. As she got ready for her shower, Lydia scowled at her wet hair and running makeup. This is what she’d be stuck with for the rest of her life. 

_ Into the shower now. Take as long as you need, he won’t miss you.  _ Lydia sighed and scrubbed at her face with her hands so the last of her dripping eyeliner washed off. 

She supposed that she shouldn’t have made that comment about his weight. It shouldn’t have been enough to prompt him to dump water all over her, forcing her to take off all her makeup and change, but, then again, he was Betelgeuse. He did everything to the extreme. Looking back on it now, Lydia chuckled a little, even if she didn’t want to. The sight of her drenched with her bangs in her face must have been quite the sight. No wonder he was laughing so hard. 

She tried not to spend too much time in the shower. Quickly, she changed into some comfortable clothes: some black leggings and a dark purple tunic. It was already late, so she didn’t bother putting makeup back on, though she did rub a little at her blemishes. Oh well… He was going to see her without makeup one way or another. This might as well be it. Not quite sure what she was going to find when she went back downstairs, she shuffled down at a snail’s pace as she combed out her wet hair. That tune was still going. Hopefully she wasn’t early. 

“An’  _ voila _ .” Spreading his arms, Betelgeuse stood triumphantly in front of the two plates of what looked like normal spaghetti. 

The kitchen was an absolute mess, like he took all the separate ingredients, used half of them, and threw the other half around the room. In the sink, dishes were piled up so high, one touch would send them toppling over and shattering. His coat and tie were now gone, and his magenta shirt was rolled up to his elbows. 

“What...did you do?” Lydia asked quietly as she entered the tornado-aftermath that was the kitchen.

“What’s it look like?” he nudged one of the plates towards her. 

Lydia just laughed. “It looks like you made a mess.” 

Slowly, the poltergeist turned and looked behind him at the pile of dishes in the sink and the splotches of ingredients tossed about. “Oh, yeah. Forgot about that part.” 

With a wave of his hand, the mess poofed out of existence, and the dishes began to wash, dry, and sort themselves back to their respective places. Lydia watched with wide eyes before smirking and picking up her plate.. 

“If you can do that, I might just consider keeping you,” she remarked.

He leaned closer to her, grinning with that familiar rack of too many teeth for one mouth and wide yellow eyes. “If you think that’s great, just wait ‘til you see what  _ else  _ I got.”

Her face flushing, Lydia grabbed a fork and stuck it into her plate. “I-I… You’re horrible. I hate you.”

“Aw, I hate you, too,” he chuckled, which only made Lydia squirm more. 

As she walked into the living room, Betelgeuse poked his head through the doorway and scowled. “Hey--where’re you going? I thought we were gonna eat.” 

“We are.” Lydia grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. “But don’t you wanna skip the whole ‘awkwardly sitting across from each other and looking into each other’s eyes’ thing?”

“I thought that was a rite of passage or somethin’ like that.”

“Haha, yeah, no way.”

She heard a snicker that felt like it was right behind her, but when she whipped around, Betelgeuse was just seated on the couch rather than standing near her, his legs propped up on the coffee table. 

“Alright, you sweet-talked me into it. What’re we watchin’?” His eyes flashed mischievously. “Somethin’  _ scary _ ?”

“Uh-uh. You dumped water on me, so I get to pick the movie.”

She shrugged and shoveled some pasta into his mouth. “Seems fair.” 

After putting in the VHS, Lydia sat down on the couch and took a bite of the spaghetti; it was a little garlicky, but good. She hunkered down in her place, a smile already coming onto her face as the movie began. Betelgeuse squinted at the screen. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t recognize what he was seeing, and he slid across the couch so he was next to Lydia. 

“What are we watching?” he whispered loudly.

“You’ll see. Eat your pasta.”

Giving Lydia a suspicious glance, Betelgeuse decided to focus more on his food. As he cleaned off his plate, he didn’t pay much attention to the movie until Lydia tapped his arm. 

“Come on, look up! You’re missing it,” she giggled, and Betelgeuse just stared at her grinning face, reminded of some of the photos on Charles’s cabinet. 

_ Well, this was different... _

When he looked up, he was greeted by a picturesque green field with trees swaying in the wind, and a girl riding a dark brown horse. “ _ Buttercup was raised on a small farm in the country of Floren _ ,” the narrator, who sounded like an old but kind gentleman, said. “ _ Her favorite pastimes were riding her horse and tormenting the farm boy that worked there. His name was Westley, but she never called him that. _ ” 

“Westley...Buttercup?” Betelgeuse asked skeptically, but Lydia shushed him.

“ _ As you wish was all he ever said to her. _ ”

Leaning over closer to her, he whispered, “Are you sure we can’t watch  _ The Exorcist _ ?”

“No! Shhh!”

“ _ That day she was amazed to discover that when he was saying, ‘as you wish’, what he really meant was, ‘I love you’. _ ”

Betelgeuse shuddered a little bit and made a face, but he didn’t say anything. For a moment, he debated on phasing away, but Lydia was still grinning as she glanced from him to the screen. Thanks to that, he stayed put and suffered through the romantics of the first scene. 

He did have to admit, it did get a little better. Westley died, Buttercup got kidnapped, and then was rescued by a man in black, who was later revealed to be Westley in disguise.

“Aha! So he’s a ghost then!” Betelgeuse exclaimed.

“No, he’s alive. He never died in the first place.” 

Grunting, Betelgeuse rolled his eyes and watched the rest of the movie. Lydia kept one eye on the movie, and the other on him. He seemed to be skeptically enjoying the movie, and she did hear him rumble a chuckle every once in a while. 

“So, did you like it?” she asked as she put the two plates into the dishwasher. 

Betelgeuse floated behind her, legs and arms crossed. “Eh, I guess so. I don’t usually watch chick flicks.”

“I wouldn’t call the Princess Bride a chick flick, but, sure, I’ll take that,” Lydia chuckled. “It was one of the first movies I watched that helped me understand what romance really was.”

He watched her for a moment, situating himself on the counter, before murmuring, “You know that it’s not really like that, right?”

Lydia gave a deep sigh as she closed the dishwasher and leaned against it. “Well, I know that now. But it was nice to believe it was when I was fifteen. But...yeah...sometimes it’s a lot more complicated than ‘true love’. Sometimes you don’t always get what you want…”

Betelgeuse snorted. “Ouch.”

“Look, if you had a choice, would you be marrying me?”

Debating it for a long moment, Betelgeuse finally shrugged, and Lydia smiled weakly. “Yeah, I didn’t think so…”

Just a few feet away from each other, they stayed silent for a moment. Betelgeuse swung his feet, the backs of his shoes making a dull  _ ‘thunk’  _ sound against the wooden cabinets. Lydia leaned against the counter and gave another sigh. 

“Whaddya think it’ll be like? Bein’ finally married n’ all?” Betelgeuse asked, breaking the silence at last. He leaned forward a little, his elbows resting on his knees. 

Lydia’s stoic expression didn’t change. She had thought about it, but recent events had completely rocked her understanding of how their relationship was going to be. At first, she thought they were just going to be stuck together, but then he went off and… Well, she could only hope he would change a little more when they actually got married. She didn’t want to be a ball and chain dragging behind him as he went from woman to woman, brothel to brothel. 

“I dunno…” She pulled down a cup and filled it with water from the sink.

She was interrupted by a snicker from Betelgeuse. “What if we raided Delia’s wine cabinet again?”

“Uh-uh. You’re lucky she didn’t notice the first time,” Lydia frowned. Taking a long sip, she glanced up at the poltergeist and asked, “What do you think it’ll be like? What would you do if you were my husband right now?”

It was a dangerous question, and she wasn't one hundred percent sure how he would respond. At first, he mulled it over, chewing his lower lip as his brow scrunched down over his eyes. When it seemed like he finally came to a conclusion, he gave a light shrug. “Eh, I might do something like this.”

Lurching precariously forward on the edge of the counter, he grabbed her hand and spun her around. Lydia almost lost her balance, but he pulled her upright again. Music was playing from...somewhere. She couldn’t quite tell the source. 

“What’s this?” she demanded as he slid off the counter, still holding her hand. 

“What, you’ve never danced before, Lyds?” he chuckled. 

Immediately, Lydia’s face flushed. “Of course I have. Once or twice...at prom.”

“Prom?” he snickered. 

“I only went to one. You had to have a date in order to go,” Lydia argued as she felt her hands being moved to their proper positions and an arm go around her. “Ah, hey, don’t you dare try anything!” 

“Scout’s honor,” he grinned a third hand slipping up between them to hold up a boy scout’s sign. When she gave him a skeptical look, he tried to give his most innocent face. “I just thought we could get in some practice before the first dance.”

“Yeah…sure.”

Somewhere in the turn they made as to not bump into the fridge, she stepped on his foot, and he winced. 

“You don’t dance a lot, do ya?”

“I’ve only really danced at one prom and one father-daughter dance. So that’s a total of maybe ten times dancing total. And most of them were the awkward teenager two-step.”

“The arm’s length kind?”

“That’s the one,” Lydia smiled. “Vincent asked me to that dance… It was back when I thought I loved him. I swore up and down to Bertha and Prudence I was going to marry him.” Looking back on it now, she gave a bitter chuckle. 

“Dancing’ll do that to ya,” Betelgeuse shrugged. 

Lydia glanced at their hands. Last time she had danced with Vincent, she remembered how hot the room was. Their hands were sweaty, barely able to hold onto their partner’s. Betelgeuse’s hand was colder as well as much bigger and rougher than Vincent’s, whose hands were long and slender, perfect for playing the piano. Not like Betelgeuse. His hand could probably fit around her wrist with no problems, and, unlike Vincent’s, it was rough with callouses and even a few scars. 

“Do you dance a lot?” Lydia asked. 

Betelgeuse rolled his eyes. “All the time, hun. Back in the Waiting Room, it’s rare for a guy to ever get out of the filing department. So you can guess how it was when I was moved to being in reception. Everyone wanted a piece outta me.”

Just as Lydia felt her smile fade, he continued, “I gotta admit, I was kinda nervous about working with all those women.”

“You, nervous around women?  _ You _ ?” Lydia giggled. 

“I know, crazy right?” He shook his head. “But I figured out pretty quick they just wanted to dance and joke around. And, boy, was it a lot of dancing. When there wasn’t anybody new in the Waiting Room for a while, we’d all go to the back and dance like we were all caught in a fairy circle. You shoulda seen it. Me and Miss Argentina killed it at the Argentine Tango.” 

“I bet you did,” Lydia chuckled. “But as long as you’re dancing with me, you’d better have some steel-toed boots.” 

He grinned and cocked an eyebrow at her. “What if I just dipped you...right now?”

Lydia’s eyes widened, and she gave him a murderous stare. “Do  _ not _ \--”

Before she could finish, he dipped her. He dipped her so low she felt her hair brush the tile floors. “Betel--”

He yanked her back up, still grinning. She was breathing fast and gripping the lapel of his suit jacket so tightly she felt her nails digging through the fabric and into her palm. 

“Well, that was exhilarating, wasn’t it?” he chuckled, still leaned over her as she was still tilted back a little into the dip.

Lydia scowled at him. He was holding her a little closer than he had been before, having shifted his grip in order to not drop her when he dipped her, and she wasn’t quite sure whether or not that had been intentional. 

“You know what?” she hissed. “I think I figured out what I’m going to do after we get married. When I’m your wife, I’m gonna put poison in your coffee.” 

He gave a low chuckle and leaned forward a bit. His mouth was near her neck, and that toothy grin had gotten a little wider. Lydia glared at him. By his expression, she half expected him to lick her neck or even take a bite out of it. 

“When I’m your husband,  _ I’ll drink it _ ,” he whispered before pulling her completely upright as her face turned as red as a tomato. 

“You’re...you’re terrible…” Lydia murmured.

“Sure am.”

She looked up at him with the best paint-peeling glare she could muster, which was more difficult than it should have been. “I hate you.”

He smiled. “I hate you, too.” Glancing about, he remarked, “Instrumental’s getting a little boring. How about some music with words?”

“Fine, but nothing raunchy.” 

“Whaddya take me for?” With a snap of his fingers, the music changed and Lydia smiled to herself when she heard the lyrics. 

“ _ It's a little bit funny _

_ This feeling inside _

_ I'm not one of those who can easily hide _

_ I don't have much money, but boy if I did _

_ I'd buy a big house where we both could live _ .”

“Of all the songs you could have picked,” she chuckled. “I never really took you as this kind of romantic.”

“Me? Romantic? Pshaw… Never.”

“ _ If I was a sculptor, ha _

_ But then again, no _

_ Or a man who makes potions in a traveling show _

_ I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do _

_ My gift is my song, and this one's for you _

_ And you can tell everybody _

_ This is your song _

_ It may be quite simple, but now that it's done _

_ I hope you don't mind _

_ I hope you don't mind _

_ That I put down in the words _

_ How wonderful life is while you're in the world _ .”

“Is this the kind of husband you’ll be?” Lydia asked. “Hopelessly awkward and indecisive?”

He shrugged. “Indecisive, maybe. I kinda lost my awkwardness a couple hundred years ago.” 

“ _ So excuse me forgetting _

_ But these things I do _

_ You see I've forgotten, if they're green or they're blue _

_ Anyway the thing is, what I really mean _

_ Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen _

_ And you can tell everybody _

_ This is the song _

_ It may be quite simple, but now that it's done _

_ I hope you don't mind _

_ I hope you don't mind _

_ That I put down in the words _

_ How wonderful life is while you're in the world _

_ I hope you don't mind _

_ I hope you don't mind _

_ That I put down in the words _

_ How wonderful life is while you're in the world. _ ”

Grinning, Lydia gave his lapels a playful tug. “I would pay money to see you awkward.”

He paused from leading her in the dance, his jaundiced eyes widening. “How  _ much  _ money?”

“What does--”

“Answer the question.”

Lydia pursed her lips and thought about it. “Like...five bucks and the KitKat bar I have stashed in my room.”

He gave a gutteral chuckle, bent so he could wrap his arms around her thighs, and picked her up. Yelping, Lydia grabbed his shoulders so she wouldn’t fall as he carried her to the counter and set her down. 

“What are you up to now?” she asked, crossing one leg over the other at the knee. 

“You said you would pay money and a KitKat bar to see what I was like five hundred years ago! You can’t take it back now!” 

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “And how are you planning to do that?”

“Easy--I didn’t sneak into Juillard for nothin’.” 

Tugging at his lapels, his suit shifted into the leather coat, red vest, and Guide hat ensemble. With another wave of his hand, a clipboard appeared in his hand. 

“Let’s see here,” he said, squinting down at the clipboard like he needed glasses. However, his voice made Lydia start. It was nothing like the slightly southern rumbly, rambling voice she knew so well. It was soft, well-spoken, and...British? 

“So your name is Lydia Deetz, you’re twenty-four, would’ve been twenty-five next summer--ooh, ah, probably shouldn’t have said that. Nevermind. Uh, anyway, and you died from…” his eyebrows rose and scrunched his forehead. “Well...that’s different. Guess I should, uh...get you to the Waiting Room to get everything settled.” 

He held out his hand, and Lydia took it. Blinking in surprise, he stared at her hand before saying, “Well, thank you, but I’d much rather there be a KitKat bar there, don’tcha think?” he asked, his voice returning to normal.

Her face flushing, Lydia retracted her hand. “Oh--uh, yeah. Just a second.” 

She ran up to her room, still a little flustered, got a five dollar bill out of her purse, and fished the KitKat bar out from the secret place under her bed. When she returned downstairs, she was still waiting exactly where she left him, hands in the pockets of his 1700s trousers. 

“Thank you, thank you,” he half-bowed and accepted the money and the chocolate bar, stuffing the cash into his pocket and the KitKat under his hat. “Well, I’d better get skedaddling. Places to go, dead people to see, but, uh…” he grinned at her, “let’s make sure ya don’t get outta practice dancin’ before the wedding.”

“You’d better not let me,” Lydia remarked before he vanished through their reflection in the stainless steel dishwasher. Once he was gone, Lydia gave a small sigh, praying that he wasn’t going where she feared he was going. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Lydia and Betelgeuse got a bit of a something goin' on in this chapter. Let's see where it goes next week!


	19. An Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter today, but an important one nonetheless! Hope you guys enjoy!

Barbara sat by the window of the attic, watching as the rain poured down the hill where their house sat into the town she had watched from that same window for the past decade. Just a few feet from her, Adam surveyed the exact same town, just in a miniature form. They had worked so hard on the model town over the years of living in this house. They never imagined they’d have to leave it behind. 

Looking up, Adam pushed down his glasses so he could focus on his wife better. “I think this is for the best, Barb.”

“I know that…” she sighed as she wrapped her fingers around her curly hair anxiously. “I just...still worry.” 

Sighing as well, Adam stood and and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “They’ll be okay. Besides...Betelgeuse can still go in between the Neitherworld and the living world, can’t he? If Lydia needs us, I’m sure that son of a gun has some kind of sneaky way of getting us back to the living world without Juno noticing.” 

Barbara leaned back on her husband, half hiding her face in his neck. Her rough but graceful hands clutched his as they rested on her stomach. 

“We can start a new life in the Neitherworld,” Adam murmured. “And...maybe we can finally get to do everything we never got the chance to do here.”

Barbara nodded. “I know, and I want to. But… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just overthinking it. I just hope Lydia will be okay. I hope they’ll both make it out okay.” 

For a moment, Adam hesitated before resting his chin on her shoulder. “If you’re not ready, we can wait.”

“No… No, we’ve been waiting for so long… Let’s go.” Smiling, Barbara squeezed his hand.

Adam smiled back and held her hand tightly, shutting off the fairy lights above the model down with the other. 

Lydia squinted and frowned as she dug into the earth with the off-white gloves Delia had given her. Just a few feet away, her stepmother knelt in a similar position, gently placing a flower bulb into the ground and covered it. 

“There we go! There’s… six done! How’s your side, Lydia?”

Lydia frowned. “Two…”

Above them, floating so it appeared he was sitting on a branch far too thin to hold his weight, Betelgeuse snickered. “Looks like Delia’s got greener thumbs than you, Lyds. Give it up.” 

Blowing a raspberry at him, Lydia carefully laid the bulb inside the hole and covered it as well before jabbing her spade into the soil. “Nope. I need a new hobby, and since I’m going to be stuck in the house for another…” she paused to count in her head before continuing, “seven months, I think I could take up gardening. It’s way better than bird-watching. Trust me, I’ve tried.” 

This only made him laugh more, and he almost fell off the branch. Somehow, he managed to keep balance and cleared his throat, still grinning.

“Besides, I think you would appreciate what we’re planting. Delia gave me my own section of garden to grow whatever I want. So I’m planting some Ghost Plants, Doll Eyes, and Dracula Orchids. Got any special meanings for those kinds of plants?”

Straightening himself out, Betelgeuse took a big incorporeal breath to begin his speech about the plants, but midway through, he choked and shuddered. When he partially regained his composure, it was like watching a wolf’s fur bristle. Something was off.

“Beej? What’s the matter?” Lydia asked, standing. 

His teeth were gritted, and his eyes were wide and flashing a metallic silver. “Someone’s opened a door.”

If it was possible, Lydia’s pale complexion paled further, and she dropped her spade and ran to the house, flinging off her gloves and hat as she went. 

“What’s going on?” Delia asked as she also stood, brushing the dirt off her jeans. 

Betelgeuse hopped off his branch and began to race after Lydia. “Stay there!” 

When he reached the inside of the house, Lydia was way ahead of him. He could see small tracks of dirt leading from across the hardwood floor of the mud and living rooms heading for the stairs. 

“Adam?! Barbara?!” Her voice was anxious, almost shrill as she called for them from the stairway. Betelgeuse swallowed, tasting the gravedirt going down his throat. This wasn’t good.

“Barbara? Babs?” Betelgeuse called as he darted into the living room, then the kitchen, then Lydia’s darkroom. “Adam?”

Slowly, he walked upstairs. Being dead, he wasn’t supposed to be able to feel anxious or nervous, but this time… 

He took a breath and pushed open the door to the attic. Inside, Lydia stood stiff as a board, her back facing him as she stood near the darkened model town. Betelgeuse swallowed again. The lights of the town were  _ never  _ off.  _ Ever _ . Slowly, he drew closer until he was almost next to Lydia and noticed the note clutched in her hand. 

From her stiff position, he wasn’t quite sure how difficult it would be to get the note away from her, so he eased nearer to her an attempt to slip it out of her grasp. It came easily, but when it left her hand, she became like a burning piece of paper: crumpling in on herself, reduced to almost nothing. 

Dropping the note and letting it fall to the ground, he held onto Lydia’s arm so she wouldn’t fall as she bent over her knees. She tried to hold in her tears, but they boiled over and spilled out in a sob. Faintly, she heard Betelgeuse let out a slew of swear words, and he led her to the couch where she had sat with the Maitlands for many an hour. 

Betelgeuse grabbed the note and opened it, already preparing every applicable curse and insult he could think of. The handwriting was Adam’s, but the wording clearly was heavily influenced by Barbara.

“ _ Dear Lydia, _

_ “We wrote you this letter because we felt like it is our time to move on to the Neitherworld. You’re about to start a new chapter of your life, and while we understand that it will be difficult, we believe that you will be able to persevere through it. We’ve taught you everything that we can, and now it’s time that you can be free to leave without us holding you back. You’re going to do so many amazing things; you just need to take the first step. _

_ “We love you, _

_ “Adam and Barbara Maitland. _ ”

Gently, he placed the letter on the table with the model town and looked back at Lydia, who was still sobbing uncontrollably. Gone. They were gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, guys! With the Maitlands gone, what will Lydia and Betelgeuse do next?


	20. Spell It Out for Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy, I'm back at it again with the cliffhangers, huh? This chapter was both interesting to write and a little inspired by other works I've seen. You'll see what I mean near the end :D! Hope y'all enjoy!

It was too bad the Maitlands weren’t there. They were always the best at this. 

Betelgeuse floated over to the couch and sat down next to Lydia. Her makeup was running, and although he wanted to wipe it off, he knew that would just make it worse. He opened his mouth to say something, but he didn’t know what  _ to  _ say. What was there to say? The Maitlands, the people she was closest to, just moved on to a new part of their afterlives. 

Rising, Betelgeuse walked over to the window, flung it open, and dug out his box of cigarettes. It didn’t take him long to start chain smoking. After all, he had been doing it since cigarettes were invented. Lighting one after another after another. Sure, he was dead, but that burning sensation was still pretty--

“Can I have one?”

He choked and coughed out a cloud of smoke bigger than he should have been able to inhale before spinning around. Lydia had stopped crying and was watching him with bloodshot eyes. For a moment, he just stared back at her then let out a cackle that sounded like it should have been able to shatter glass. 

“You’re cute. No.” 

“Why not?” Lydia croaked. “Other humans do it.”

His eyes looked so grey, it was like they had a metallic shine to them, and they reflected in the sun as he rolled his eyes, making Lydia squint to look at him. “Alright, fine. You can try it. Roof?”

“Roof…” Lydia murmured as she stood and opened the hatch in the attic leading to their spot on the roof. 

Once they had settled down on the roof, he drew out a cigarette and lit it for her before handing it over. Hesitating, Lydia stared at the glowing ember on the end of the cigarette. Betelgeuse watched her closely as she drew the cigarette to her lips and inhaled. Immediately, she choked and coughed out a cloud of smoke. If it had been another occasion, he might have laughed, but now he could only manage a low chuckle. The cigarette was returned. Slowly he finished it and tossed the butt over the railing. 

“This sucks,” Betelgeuse grumbled. 

Lydia tried to reply, but she could only get out a cough as the smoke and chemicals from the cigarette kept burning in her throat. So, instead, she nodded. She eyed his pack of cigarettes, and Betelgeuse must have seen the temptation in her eyes to try again since he pulled the pack away from her. 

“These things’ll kill ya, Lyds.”

She let out a low cough. “Why…? Why did they leave…?” she managed to get out.

“Not sure. What I can’t wrap my head around is why the heck they’d leave without tellin’ anybody. That’s  _ not  _ a Maitland move. That’s like a...like a...a ME move.” He looked over at Lydia, who was staring at the railing as she bit her lip. “Unless…?”

“Unless what?” she snapped.

“Unless you know somethin’ I don’t.” 

Lydia sighed. “I guess. I… They...they’ve tried to leave before…”

Betelgeuse spluttered and coughed out more smoke despite having not touched his cigarettes for several minutes. “ _ What _ ?”

“Yeah… It was maybe a year or two after your first...visit.” The way she said ‘visit’ was apprehensive, and he raised an eyebrow at her. “They came and told me that they were going to move on like the Handbook told them to. But...I begged them to stay…” Lydia sighed shakily and rested her chin on her knees. “

“The...Handbook?” In the blink of an eye, he darted down through the roof, and Lydia stood.

“Betelgeuse? What are you--” 

She stumbled back and gasped as he reemerged almost right under her, flipping through what looked almost like the Maitland’s Handbook for the Recently Deceased, just older and rattier. The cover was worn and chipped in many places, the spine was so shattered the book looked like it would fall apart any moment, and the pages looked almost completely red from being covered in so many red-inked notes. 

“Is that your…?”

“I thought so!” Betelgeuse grumbled. “I need to talk to Juno.” With that, he pushed the mangled book into Lydia’s hands. “Keep a hold of that, an’ don’t lose it. I’ll be back.” With that, he dove through the roof again and disappeared through the mirror standing near the Maitland’s bed.

Appearing in the Waiting Room, he looked around expectantly only to see unfamiliar yet familiarly dead faces. One girl sat reading her newly acquired Handbook with a knife in her side and the broken strap of a purse in her hand, and two teenagers with burnt faces were still giggling to each other about fireworks. Unfortunately, the Maitlands weren’t among them, so he stomped up to the counter and knocked hard on the window until his knuckles started to turn red. 

“What do you--oh! Be-attle! You are back so soon!” Miss Argentina exclaimed. 

“I need to talk to Juno real quick, Mimi. Is she seein’ anybody?”

“Not at the moment, no. Why? Is everything okay?”

Betelgeuse grumbled and started towards the hallway. “Not right now…”

The trip down the hallway was all too familiar. As a guide and Juno’s personal assistant, every time he brought in a newly dead, he had to report to her. Every time there was an anomaly, he had to report to her. Every time she wanted him...he had to report to her. Juno was no demon, true. Demons were much worse, and Betelgeuse knew that from the handful of instances he was in a scrape with one. It was also true that Juno wasn’t the worst human being or even lover to ever exist. She did ask for consent. She just didn’t care if the response was a lie. 

A familiar concoction of supposedly impossible emotions boiled in Betelgeuse’s stomach. Mostly anger. Anger at the Maitlands for forcing him back to the Waiting Room. Anger at Juno for constantly humiliating him in front of his coworkers and using him. The only person he wasn’t angry with was Lydia. He just hated that she was on the butt end of this situation. 

He reached Juno’s door, which stood as tall and imposing as ever, her name resting on a black plaque on the front. Lingering like a student in front of a principal’s office, he started to come up with about a million excuses as he raised a hand to knock on the door. It was shaking. He hated that it was shaking. He looked like an idiot out here, and it wasn’t even his problem. He didn’t care if the Maitlands were gone! He didn’t care at all! 

Nevertheless, Betelgeuse summoned his courage and knocked on the door. 

_ BAM BAM BAM _

He flinched in surprise at how loud the sound echoed. After it faded, there was just silence, which was even worse than if she had answered immediately. Maybe she wasn’t in her office? He could track her down in the Waiting Room, but, oh, that might take too long. And what was he even going to say to her?

“Enter.” 

At once, Betelgeuse insides buckled like a suffocated bug. That graveyard taste was almost overwhelming in his mouth as he twisted the creaking handle and pushed open the heavy door. Juno sat in her office with its familiar green lights coming in through the blinds. Those blinds were usually closed when he went into her office. It took Juno speaking to draw his attention from the light. 

“What do you want  _ now _ , Betelgeuse? Finally come to your senses and come crawling back?”

Betelgeuse cleared his throat. “I wanna know about the Maitlands.”

“The Maitlands? Oh, yes, the dears just came in a few hours ago. What about them?”

Betelgeuse’s forehead scrunched for a moment until he remembered the ever-changing time differences between the Neitherworld and living world. He went to sit in one of the chairs opposite Juno’s desk, but she held up a gnarled hand. “Must I remind you that you are not welcome here?”

“N-No, Juno.”

“Good. What do you want to know about the Maitlands?”

Betelgeuse shoved his hands in his pockets and stared down at his shoes. “Well, I was just curious about how they’ve moved on to the Neitherworld already when their 150 year sentence isn’t up yet.”

“Ah, yes,” Juno nodded and rummaged through her files for a moment before drawing out a manila folder, the Maitland’s name printed across the front. “You see, their sentence was originally going to be 150 years, but after the incident with you, I had to reward them somehow for keeping you from breaking the balance of life and death. If it hadn’t been for them, your scheme to come back to life might have worked. I had nothing else I could give them other than freeing them of their sentence and allowing them to move to the Neitherworld whenever they chose.”

“That being ten years later.”

“Yes. I didn’t question why, though I suppose that’s the exact reason why you’re here?”

Betelgeuse murmured under his breath and scuffed his shoes on the ground. Juno was always uncomfortably perceptive, even without--

“I’ve always loved you in purple,” Juno remarked, leaning forward and resting her chin in her hand.

Hands whipping up into his hair, Betelgeuse snagged a hair and brought it down to look. Sure enough, it was a deep violet.

“What was that for?!” he demanded, and Juno just raised her hands. 

“I didn’t do anything. It’s your fault for letting your emotions control you, Betelgeuse. When I placed that curse on you, I thought it would give you good enough reason not to be carried away with emotion. Apparently, it wasn’t enough.”

“My bad hair days aside,” Betelgeuse grumbled, “I guess you did hit the nail on the head. Where’s the Maitlands?” 

Closing the folder, Juno handed it across to him. “I figure you still have your old prowess, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding them in the Neitherworld. But might I suggest you spend the night here before you go out looking for them? We both know what kind of creatures roam the Neitherworld in the night.”

Betelgeuse gave a small shudder and then glared at Juno. “Fine. But not with  _ you _ .”

In a moment, he was out of her office, chest puffed as he prided himself on, for once, leaving Juno with his dignity still intact. Though she did have a good point about now traveling during a Neitherworld night. If the monsters didn’t catch you, bounty hunters would, and he figured he had at least one on his head for all the enemies he had made over the centuries. But there was no way he was staying in the Waiting Room. His old instincts were coming back in waves stronger than ever. He needed out. 

Opening a side door, Betelgeuse dove out of the Waiting Room and into the Neitherworld, keeping a close eye on the setting sun as he flew the short distance to the outside of the city. When he landed in front of the familiar silhouette of Dante’s Inferno Room, he gave a short sigh, glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the sun sink below the horizon, and entered. 

Dante’s was, as usual, lively, which was one of its major appeals aside from the obvious appeals who wore fishnets and short sleeveless dresses. A couple of the courtesans who recognized him called out to him, but he ignored them, hurrying up to an empty room, flipping the sign to “Do Not Disturb” and locking the door after him. 

Of course, the room looked familiar as well. They were all identical with a large four poster bed centered against the wall with a lacy curtain going around the bed to conceal it. The curtain itself was a deep red color at the top and slowly faded to orange then yellow then white in an ombre effect to make it look like flames. Two nightstands stood on either side of the bed, both offering wine bottles and glasses. Besides that, the room was relatively bare. The carpet was black but soft as Betelgeuse took off his boots. The walls were dark red like the curtain, and the ceilings were also black, though it had a popcorn texture like many seedy motels Betelgeuse had been to. It was part of the charm. 

Flopping down on the bed, Betelgeuse stared up at the ceiling and gave a sigh. This would be a long night.

“Lydia, please tell us what’s going on,” Delia pleaded, following her step-daughter as she dug through a box that she got down out of the higher shelves of her closet. 

“I don’t  _ know  _ yet. When I hear something from him, he’ll tell us what’s going on,” Lydia snapped. “I just...please just leave me alone. I’ll figure this out, I promise.”

Delia continued to stare at her with worried blue eyes before nodding silently. Sighing in relief, Lydia watched her leave before pulling out ten years’ worth of sketchbooks out of the box. Situated under it all was an item given to her by her aunt, specifically, her mother’s sister. She only got to use it a few times to scare Bertha and Prudence before it was stuffed in the closet and forgotten. Lydia drew out the Oujia Board, wiping the dust out of the crevices of the letters and admiring the eye and hand designs surrounding the numbers, letters, and the yes, no, and goodbye inscriptions.

She would have to prepare. 

Setting the Ouija Board on the floor, Lydia cleaned up her mess and shoved the box back in the closet. It was already dark outside. She could begin and, hopefully, remember how to make it work. 

She showered--she had neglected it for a few days--and used the soap she saved for special occasions, scrubbing her skin until it smelled like lavenders. Putting on her nightgown, she wrapped her robe around herself before rushing to her room and preparing the rest. Delia had called her a bit obsessed, but now Lydia was grateful for her collection of Yankee Candles. She arranged them in a circle and lit each one. She hadn’t gone down for dinner yet, but she imagined her parents would understand her isolation. She hoped they did. 

For the next step, Lydia grabbed her favorite perfume and sprayed some on herself before spraying it around the room. The room had to be overwhelmingly her--and it was starting to get that way. Lydia’s head began to ache from the mixture of so many pungent smells. 

Now all she had to do was wait. Stepping out of the room, Lydia took a breath of fresh air before walking downstairs. Her parents had gone to bed, no doubt. It was already ten ‘o clock. It didn’t take Lydia too terribly long to break the combination code on Delia’s wine cabinet. It had been much faster when Betelgeuse reached in and got it out with his ghostly powers. But he wasn’t here right now. 

Lydia frowned and clutched the bottle in her hands. Hopefully that would be partially remedied tonight.

Carrying the bottle back upstairs to her room, Lydia opened the door and coughed a little when the strong smells from her room hit her. However she entered nonetheless and set the bottle of wine down on the floor next to the Ouija Board. 

Wringing her hands, Lydia swallowed as butterflies began to flutter in her stomach. What if he couldn’t pick up her call? Or just didn’t want to? Was he angry at her for forcing him to be a part of this mess? She still had two hours until the witching hour. 

Quickly she stood and hurried to her vanity. By the light of the candles, she put on some makeup, lining her eyes and putting on her darkest shade of lipstick She looked more like herself, and more like he knew her. She wasn’t sure if he could see her through the board or not, but...maybe it would help, somehow. It made her feel a little more confident. Her hair was down, and she quickly dried it with a blowdryer and pulled her hair up so it sat in a spiky dark mass on the top of her head. 

It was arranged similarly in the first marriage attempt. Shaking her head a little, she grabbed a dark purple scrunchie and tied her hair up. 

It was eleven now. 

She knelt on the floor and made sure her candles would stay lit as long as she needed them and then began to pace in front of the Ouija Board. When the grandfather clock from downstairs struck twelve, Lydia jumped with a gasp, startled out of her own head. Dropping to her knees she sat in front of the Ouija board. Her heart was pounding in her ears. What if she didn’t do this right? What if he didn’t answer?

Lydia frowned, opened the wine bottle, and took a sip, making a face at the strong astringent taste. Shaking her head in a slight shudder, she picked up the dark green planchette that came with the board and placed it on the board. 

“H...Hello? Is anybody there?”

It took longer than it did the last time she used the Ouija board to mess with Bertha and Prudence, but, then again, the last time, she  _ watched  _ the Maitlands move the planchette. The Maitlands…

_ No, no, can’t think of that now!  _ Lydia scowled and focused on the planchette. Finally, it began to wobble, and she smiled. This looked more familiar…

Suddenly, the planchette whizzed out of Lydia’s grasp and began spelling. Lydia blinked hard to try and overcome her shock and followed the planchette’s spelling. 

“C-A-L-L-E-R?”

“U-Uh… Lydia? Lydia Deetz?” she said hesitantly.

“R-E-C-I-P-I-E-N-T?”

“Betelgeuse.”

The planchette stayed still for a moment before slowly making its way to spell another word.

“L...O...C...A...T...I...N...G… R-E-D-I-R-E-C-T-I-N-G.”

Lydia leaned closer to the Ouija board, gasping quietly when the candles flickered a little and a new scent was introduced into the room. Unlike the other perfumes and pleasant candle scents, this smelled like lingering cigarette smoke, alcohol, and earth. It smelled like  _ him _ . A smile came to her lips. So she did do it right! 

“Betelgeuse?” she asked, tucking her dark hair behind her ears.

The planchette still moved quickly, though a little clumsier, as if the user was unskilled or out of practice. “W-H-O--Z-A-T?”

“It’s Lydia.”

The planchette stayed still for a moment before whizzing around so quickly Lydia struggled to spell it out in the journal she had in her lap. 

“L-Y-D-S? W-H-Y--D-O--Y-O-U--H-A-V-E--A--O-U-I-J-A?”

“It was a gift from my aunt a long time ago. Did you find the Maitlands? What did they say?”

The planchette slowly dragged itself over to the “NO” before starting to spell again. “S-T-I-L-L--F-I-N-D-I-N-G--T-H-E-M.”

Lydia sighed heavily. “I just hope you can find them and get some answers…”

The planchette scraped over to the “YES” before falling still. Slowly, Lydia cleared her throat and murmured, “I...uh… We were worried, you know…”

“D-O-N-T--I--W-I-L-L--F-I-N-D--M-A-I-T-L-A-N-D-S.”

“No, no, not like that. Well, yes, we are worried about the Maitlands, but...my parents were worried about where you had gone when they realized you had left. I told them you went after the Maitlands. 

“A-W--T-H-E-Y--C-A-R-E.” 

Chuckling, Lydia forced herself not to rub her puffy eyes and sighed shakily, “Yeah… Things have been...things have been really… Well, they’ve been...you know. Um…” She bit her lip, lipstick smearing on the back of her teeth. “I...kind of miss you...” she murmured. It almost hurt to say it, but it was out now. She sat perfectly still on her knees, not daring to breathe until the planchette started moving again. 

“M-I-S…” 

Then it stopped. The two sat still in silence for a long time until, finally, he continued. “Y-O-U--S-M-E-L-L--N-I-C-E.” 

Lydia smiled as she wrote the beginning of his previous sentence in her notebook. She could have finished the sentence for him, but it wouldn’t be the same. “Thanks. It smells like a mall store to me, and it’s awful.”

“W-I-N-E?”

“Yeah, I stole some from Delia’s wine cabinet. I only tasted a little bit. I just wasn’t sure if you’d be able to smell it, but I brought some just in case. Supposedly, ghosts like that kind of stuff when you have a seance.” Smirking, Lydia chuckled a little. 

“I--H-A-V-E--W-I-N-E--T-O-O.” 

Lydia blinked and swallowed the words that almost spurted out of her. For a moment, she considered it, before asking, “Where are you?”

“D-A-N-T-E-S.”

Of course he was. She knew it. She shouldn’t have even asked. Quickly, she reached for the planchette and started pulling it towards the “goodbye”. “Oh. Well, sorry if I interrupted anything.” 

Just as the corner of the planchette touched the “goodbye”, it managed to wrestle out of her grasp, and it whizzed around on the board again. “I--A-M--A-L-O-N-E. G-E-E-Z.”

“Oh…” Lydia murmured again, her chin touching her chest. “Um… I’m sorry?”

“D-O-N-T--W-O-R-R-Y--A-B-O-U-T--I-T. W-A-N-N-A--D-R-I-N-K?”

Lydia chuckled weakly. “I’m not looking to give myself another hangover. No thanks.” 

“L-A-M-E. Y-O-U--K-E-E-P--T-A-L-K-I-N. I-M-M-A--D-R-I-N-K--T-I-L--I--C-A-N--S-E-E--D-E-A-D--P-E-O-P-L-E. O-H--W-A-I-T.”

Lydia snorted and laughed, which sent a warm feeling through her after feeling nothing aside from anger and sadness at both the Maitlands and herself. “Just don’t get so drunk that you can’t find your way back to the world of the living. It’s been a long two weeks.”

The planchette had been already spelling out a reply when it stopped dead in his tracks as she finished. “W-H-A-T?”

“What?” Lydia asked, cocking her head. 

“I-T-S...B-E-E-N--T-W-O...W-E-E-K-S?” While the planchette was merely spelling, Lydia could imagine all too clearly Betelgeuse’s pale white face turning a reddish color on his forehead and cheeks as he squawked like a strangled crow. 

“You...didn’t know this?” Lydia asked. “I didn’t hear from you after you left that day on the roof. I didn’t know how to contact you without summoning you until I remembered I had the Ouija board.” 

The planchette lay still for so long Lydia began to think he might have left, but that cheap wine smell was still emanating out of her lavender candles. While Lydia struggled to tell the difference between cheap wine and expensive wine, Delia always bragged about how fine her wine was, so she assumed that it was whatever Betelgeuse was drinking at Danté’s. 

Finally, the planchette lifted a little before scrabbling angrily across the board in what Lydia assumed was the ghost version of a passionate keysmash. Watching it closely, Lydia cleared her throat and glanced away as Betelgeuse spelled out some words that Lydia didn’t dare transcribe into her notebook. 

“I--H-A-T-E--T-H-E--N-E-I-T-H-E-R-W-O-R-L-D!”

“You and me both,” Lydia chuckled a little. “But...it’ll be fine. Just try to find the Maitlands in time, and maybe you can be back by the end of the month in time to celebrate Halloween.”

“A-W--I--T-H-O-U-G-H-T--Y-O-U--W-E-R-E--G-O-N-N-A--S-A-Y--N-A-T-I-O-N-A-L--G-R-E-A-S-Y--F-O-O-D--D-A-Y. I-T-S--O-N--T-H-E--2-5--B-T-W.”

Lydia smiled a little. “Well, Delia doesn’t usually like to cook greasy, but there’s always a festival in town on Halloween with plenty of fried foods for you to eat for a late Greasy Food Day.” 

“Y-E-Y--Y-D-T--”

“You good?” she chuckled. 

“D-R-N-U-N-K.”

“Looks like it. I’ll let you sleep it off. Goodnight, Beej.”

“N-O-O-O-O. F-I-N-E.”

The planchette clumsily scraped down to the “goodbye”, and the candles all blew out at once on their own. Lydia sat in the darkness as the smoke trailed up and collected a little bit on her ceiling before she grabbed the lids and covered the still smoking candles. Her room still smelled like cigarettes, earth, and cheap wine. She took another moment sitting still on the floor before setting the Ouija board and its planchette on her desk and returning the wine bottle back to the cabinet. After securing the lock, she returned to her room, curled up in her bed and stared at the Ouija board on her desk. 

Betelgeuse watched as the ethereal Ouija board before him dissipated into smoke that sank down on him. It drowned out the smoky, cheap wine smell of the room and, as an almost knee-jerk reaction, he took a deep breath. She must have got the perfume as a gift from her dad. It smelled as rich as Miss Argentina’s perfume, and as a pageant star, the perfume she was wearing when she died was top-notch. Juno’s perfume was cheap but recognizable. When he was her assistant, the other ghosts would give him knowing looks when he came into the room with Juno’s perfume lingering about him. 

Still, Lydia’s was better, and he wasn’t lying when he told her that her room smelled good, even if he was trying to avoid admitting that he missed her sharp, quick-witted remarks. She could show Juno what for if given the chance. 

The floating planchette dropped into his hand, and he quickly tied the chain around the hole in the middle and put it loosely around his neck so it hung almost to the middle of his stomach. After safely tucking the ruby red planchette under his shirt, he closed the curtain around the bed with a wave of his hand and flopped down on his back, eyes glued to the ceiling above. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Banging pots and pans for a distant hilltop* My friends, they are PINING!
> 
> Good thing they don't realize it, or else they'd probably be really freaked out, lol. Until next time!


	21. Lost and Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! After a three chapter saga, Betelgeuse finally tracks down the Maitlands in the Neitherworld. Will he be able to convince them to come back with him? We'll see! Hope you enjoy!

They weren’t in the city; Betelgeuse was sure of that now. But then again, he should’ve known better than to look in the city. Those country bumpkins had probably never stepped out of rural Connecticut their whole lives. The rural parts of the Neitherworld, though…

Well, it was certainly one of the best parts of the Neitherworld. It wasn’t the soul-sucking city, at least. If they chose to live in the country, then they might have a similar afterlife to what they had in the living world, and a relatively safe one, too. 

His steel-toed leather boots crunched against the grayish grass as he exited the city. Of course, the houses that were scattered in the endless fields were some of the first houses to exist in the Neitherworld, even before the city towered above them. It’s where all the American settlers and nomadic travelers lived, animal skin tents tents and wooden English-style cottages alike lining the blood-orange horizon. 

Stopping at one of the old, familiar tudor houses, Betelgeuse rapped his knuckles on the door and waited until the lady of the house answered the door. 

“Lovely Kate,” he drawled when she opened the door, a scowl immediately screwing up on her tanned face.

“Don’t Kate me, you--you rascal!” Whipping out a rag, she swatted at him, and he jumped down a few stairs. “Don’t think I’d forget about how you fondled my pettiskirt when you were escorting me to the Waiting Room!” 

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten, either, my dear Katherine. You slapped me silly!”

“I sure did!” Katherine snorted angrily as she sat down on the railing of the steps. “Now, what do you want, fiend?”

“Well, I came over to ask about the real estate recently…” Betelgeuse admitted, scratching the back of his head as Katherine gave him a cold look. 

“This had better not be some kind of metaphor for--”

“It’s not! It’s not, I swear!” Betelgeuse waved his hands before giving a deep sigh. To Katherine’s surprise, he reached up and removed the familiar beaten up guide cap he wore, holding it in his hands. “Please… I’m tryin’ to find some folks who moved in these parts recently.”

At this, Katherine’s harsh expression softened, but her wit remained just as sharp: “People die and move in every day. I figured you’d know that.” When he gave her an annoyed glance, she sighed deeply and asked, “What’re their names?”

Immediately, Betelgeuse perked up. “Maitland! Adam and Barbara Maitland. They live in a big ole white Victorian-style house.”

“Oh, them! They’re so lovely,” Katherine grinned, making Betelgeuse sigh in relief. “Why, just the other day I went over to show the lady of the house how to cook a grand meal. After all, I have so many siblings, it was practically every day we ate big meals like that--”

As he put his hat back on, he asked slowly, “Why...would they need to feed that many people…?”

“You’ll see. Come along, you big galoot! I needed to ask her how it came out, anyway.” Hopping off the railing, Katherine hiked up her long skirts and started in the direction of the fields. As she did, she kept an eye on Betelgeuse to see if he was ogling under her skirts, but, to her surprise, he wasn’t. 

“You’re usually more blabbermouthed than this. What’s gotten into you?” she demanded as he walked silently alongside her.

He just gave a weak shrug. “Ah, nothin’. I just... _ really _ need to see ‘em again.”

“Right. Well, they’re a little hard to miss seeing as they got one’a the tallest houses I’ve ever seen smackdab on a hill.” 

She gestured to the house coming up on the hill before him, and Betelgeuse laughed to himself. There it was, almost identical to its place in the living world: the familiar white Victorian house sitting on top of a hill, looking the way it had before the Deetzes moved in and renovated it to make it look more modern. The big wooden sign out front was a bit different, and the house itself looked a bit bigger on the sides. As they drew nearer, Betelgeuse squinted in order to read the white lettering on the forest green backdrop. 

“ _ Maitland’s Home for Deceased Children _ ?” he said almost all at once. Sure enough, he began to hear the chatter of childrens’ voices as he slowly walked up the front steps to the porch with Katherine. 

“Yep! When they heard there were some kids still waiting for their parents to die, they apparently couldn’t resist.” Knocking on the door, she called, “Barbara!”

“Just a minute!” 

The familiar voice made Betelgeuse bite his lip. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the slightly muffled sound of the Maitlands talking to each other in the attic. 

A moment later, the door swung open and a slightly frazzled but happy-faced Barbara opened the door, a two-year-old ghost sucking his thumb on her hip. She looked the same way she did back in the living world, but this time, she wasn’t hiding what did her in, seeing as there was no one to hide it from. Her dress was clean and dry, but her wet curly hair hung loosely and occasionally dripped on the floor, almost like she had just gotten out of the shower rather than died in a horrible crash in a river. 

“Oh--Katherine! Oh…” she paused and looked at Betelgeuse with wide eyes. When he cleared his throat nervously, she adjusted the little boy on her hip and said, “Why don’t you two come in?”

Betelgeuse’s astonishment only grew when he entered the house. Around them, there were hordes and hordes of more and more children. Adam was currently sitting a circle of them in the living room, and he gave them a bit of a worried look when he saw them. Betelgeuse only gave a short wave before skirting to a stop so he wouldn’t knock into two children who raced out in front of him.

“Alex! Dewey! Don’t run in the house,” Barbara chided before bringing them into the kitchen where a crockpot sat cooking on the counter. Once she put down the little boy she was holding, she turned and looked over at Betelgeuse. “Is...is everything okay?”

For a moment, the poltergeist just stood there before shaking himself as he came back to reality. “Okay? Okay?! You  _ dumped  _ us! What the  _ heck _ , Maitlands?!”

When he heard the yelling, Adam entered the kitchen as well and took his usual place next to Barbara. “Betelgeuse, we--”

“Oh, no, don’t you start, mister!” Betelgeuse interrupted, lashing up a finger so a metal plate sealed Adam’s mouth shut. “Look, I like you folks a lot--liked you from the day I met you, actually--but right now I am royally pissed off! What gives you the right to just decide, ‘ _ whoopsie-doodle, we’re gonna move on to the Neitherworld now! It’s not like anything important is going on in the living world that we might need to help with! _ ’.” His lips curled into a snarl, baring every single one of his sharp yellow teeth, but the Maitlands’ eyes were glued just above him where he already knew his hair was a deep bloody red.

“Betelgeuse, please…”

“But no! No! You couldn’t wait a single gosh-darn year?! Lydia NEEDS you, you blathering, blue-brained idiots! She needs you so bad that  _ I _ had to come get you! But now I can’t even take you back because--” he cut himself off as he sank into a chair, one hand covering his face. “Curse you. Curse you, Maitlands,” he moaned.

“We had to go,” Adam replied. “You don’t understand. We had already been waiting ten years go move on.”

“To WHAT?!” Betelgeuse roared as he jerked to his feet, making Adam stumble back slightly. “This?! I think these kids could’ve waited a little longer.”

Adam opened his mouth to retort, but Barbara just touched his arm as she gazed at Betelgeuse. “There’s something you need to see.” 

Still glaring at them, Betelgeuse stuffed his hands in his pockets and complied as she led him up the stairs. The first floor looked to be all the childrens’ bedrooms, but, to his surprise, she continued up an extra flight...to the attic. 

It looked similar to how it did before they left, but more like a bedroom than a renovated attic. All the insulation was covered with sheetrock, and that sheetrock was covered in a light green paint job. Long white lacy curtains hung from the windows to the floor, matching the rest of the white furniture. An exact copy of the model town sat in one corner, but, like it’s living-world counterpart, its lights were off. It was, frankly, very Maitlands, and Betelgeuse slowly turned as Barbara watched him carefully. 

“Nice bedroom, but I don’t--” 

He stopped suddenly when he saw it. Pushed up near one of the windows sat a large white crib with a little mobile hanging above it. When he glanced back at Barbara, she motioned for him to come closer to it, so he approached, looming over the crib with its little white and yellow blankets. Inside lay a tiny baby girl, so small that she almost looked doll-like. She had a full head of curly dark hair and brown eyes and,  _ oh…  _ The poltergeist felt a familiar emotion well up in his stomach, but he squashed it down best he could.

“Oh--” his voice cracked when it came out, and he cursed himself as he closed his eyes. “Oh…”

Slowly, Barbara came up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Betelgeuse...are you okay?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a baby?” he whispered, looking up at her.

Barbara bit her lip nervously as she reached down and picked up her baby, who cooed at her and grabbed at her mother’s long curls. “I...It was just hard to talk about her… She...she was…”

“Miscarried?”

Barbara’s lip began to bleed. “Yes.”

“I could tell. She’s been dead longer than you.” Glancing down at the infant ghost, Betelgeuse added, “She’s the reason you came here?”

“Yes,” Barbara murmured. “We had been planning to stay for at least the wedding, to...to make sure Lydia would be alright, but then Juno contacted us…” Sighing shakily, Barbara walked to the opposite window, and Betelgeuse followed. “She told us that since we were willingly not coming to pick her up where they were holding her after ten years...that her spirit would begin to fade. We would have never wanted to choose her over Lydia, but we had no choice. If we hadn’t moved on when we did, she would have been gone forever.” 

“No, you don’t have to explain. I get it,” Betelgeuse replied. He hadn’t looked up from Barbara’s daughter. “What’s her name?”

“Hope,” Barbara smiled. “Hope Renee Maitland.”

“Could you get any more suburban?” Betelgeuse chuckled, finally cracking a familiar smile, and Barbara laughed as she blinked away her tears. 

“But, yeah, the CPS in the Neitherworld sucks,” he added as he leaned on the wall next to Barbara. “There’s been a lot of good kids who’ve moved on when nobody wanted ‘em. I would know, I used to work there before I was transferred back to the Waiting Room. Best job I ever had.” 

Barbara looked up in surprise and smiled. “Oh… Well, do you want to hold her?”

Immediately, Betelgeuse choked on his own spit. “ _ You _ want  _ me  _ to...hold her?”

“Yes?” Barbara laughed, holding her out to him. 

Betelgeuse stared at tiny Hope Maitland looking at him with curious brown eyes and stammered incoherently for a moment before brushing off the arms of his jacket and holding out his hands. Glancing over him to make sure he was mostly clean, Barbara chuckled a little and handed Hope over to him. 

Not in a million years would she have thought she would willingly let the destructive poltergeist hold a child, especially not hers. How they first met in the graveyard lingered in the back of her mind for the longest time when he came back around, but now, holding Hope, he was so quiet and gentle, almost docile. It was almost like he was a regular house ghost like her rather than a being of pure chaos. Barbara smiled a little. Maybe he could be like this for Lydia. Maybe this is what he was like under that swearing, perverse, mold-covered shell. Is this what he was like before he died?

Betelgeuse stayed silent as held Hope. Grasping at the lapel of his brown leather coat, she yawned, her eyelids growing heavy over her doe brown eyes. He and Barbara stood quietly together as she fell asleep, though Barbara watched him closely. There was something about the expression on his face… His grey eyes looked strangely blue as he looked down at her daughter, and his hair, which had faded back to a pale greyish green after the argument, had some faint stripes of purple running through it. 

“You know, I always wanted…” he trailed off, and Barbara looked at him intently to see if he would finish. Clearing his throat, he changed course and offered Hope back to her, “I, uh, always wanted to sayyyyy...that...you know… me and Lyds are gonna miss you two back over in the living world.” 

Barbara rocked her daughter before putting her back in the crib. “We miss you two, too. I wish that we could have stayed long enough for the wedding, but--”

“Babs, I told you, don’t apologize,” Betelgeuse chuckled. “Sure, I was pissed, but I didn’t know why you’d left. If I had known about the little polliwog, I wouldn’t’ve been so mad. I’m sure Lyds will understand, too. And, hey, if you wanna be there for the wedding, I can always come and getcha.”

Barbara’s face lit up. “You mean...you can do that?”

Readjusting the guide cap on his head, he just laughed again, “I’m the best guide this side of the Neitherworld, Bonnie. Now let’s go back down before that husband of yours frets himself to second death.” 

Sure enough, they found Adam by the base of the stairs, wringing his hands, but when he saw Barbara and Betelgeuse coming down smiling and chuckling together, he seemed to relax. Once they were all back in the kitchen, Betelgeuse rocked his weight from foot to foot before saying, “Can’t say I’m sorry for yelling at you--you kinda deserved it. But I’m not mad anymore.”

Adam sighed in relief. “We’re sorry. It was just really important that we--”

Betelgeuse held up a hand. “Babs told me the whole story, and I respect it. Smushbean-whatever-her-name-is would’ve faded if you guys didn’t come. I’ll just pass that on to Lydia, and, well...we’ll manage.” 

The said it with an air of finality, and the Maitland glanced at each other curiously before watching him to see if he would poof away or fly off with a dramatic toss of his leather coat, but, instead, he stuck out his hand towards Adam and held it there. For a second, he didn’t understand what the poltergeist was trying to do, but when he dawned on him, he smiled and shook his hand. 

“You’ll be a great dad, Adam,” Betelgeuse grinned, “and, heck, a great step-dad even. Trust in my professional daddy-issues opinion when I say that.”

The Maitlands chuckled at his antics and when he let go of Adam’s hand, he looked over at Barbara and shuffled his feet. “Thanks for treating me decently when I first came to the house, Bobbie.”

Barbara looked at him for a long time before throwing her arms around him and hugging him tightly. She felt his smaller form flinch as she had to bend over him slightly, but, eventually, his hands rested on her back and gave her a little pat. 

“Take good care of our girl,” Barbara whispered, and she saw the poltergeist smile as he rested his chin on her shoulder. 

“I promise. And I might be the biggest jerk the world’s ever seen, but I don’t break my promises.”

Releasing him, Barbara stepped back as Betelgeuse began to float. He flashed them his signature grin. “This won’t be the last of me Maitlands, mark my words! Expect me in a monkey suit next time I come ‘round!” 

He caught a glimpse of them waving as he shot up through the ceiling and, seeing the metal door to the basement glinting in the sunlight, let himself freefall into it. Sure enough, the reflective surface spat him out of the Deetz’s stainless steel fridge, and he landed splayed out on the floor. 

A moment later, soft footsteps echoed down the stairs, and a sleepless Lydia appeared in her pajamas. She stopped in shock for a moment before rushing forward and grasping his arm as he pushed himself up with a groan. 

“Betelgeuse! You’re back!” She looked up, and her smile faded. “Where...where are the Maitlands? Didn’t you bring them with you?”

He looked up at her and sighed. “Oh boy… Uhhh… ‘Bout that. The Maitlands aren’t gonna come back, Lyds. Not permanently, at least.” 

“Why not?” Lydia asked, trying to keep her composure, but tears were quickly burning her eyes. 

“They’ve got…” he sighs again and struggles to his feet. “They’ve got...a kid. Well, a lot of them technically, but… They have a kid of their own.  _ Have  _ had. Before they kicked the bucket, I mean.”

“You mean...their kid died before them?” Lydia asked in horror. The Maitlands had never mentioned anything about having a child. In some instances, they would mention how they had been trying to have a baby before they died, but that was it. 

Betelgeuse nodded. “Mhm. But since Neitherworld CPS is the actual worst, she...uh…” he paused and reached through Delia’s wine cabinet, searching for the wine bottle that Lydia had sampled. When he found it, he pulled it out, opened it, and took a swig. “She was starting to fade since they hadn’t come back for her after ten years.”

Lydia swallowed anxiously, her eyes wide. “B-But...she’s okay...right?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” he said, watching Lydia confusedly as she sighed shakily in relief. “They moved on in time. The good news is that they come and visit sometimes, so they can be here for...uh...you know...the weddin’ and all…” 

Lydia simply nodded as she tried to swallow back her tears. “I’m...gonna go back to bed…” she whispered, turning around. 

Betelgeuse watched her for a moment before drinking some more wine. “Alright. Gnite, Lyds.”

“Goodnight.” 

She mounted the stairs quickly so he wouldn’t see the tears running nonstop down her face. Wiping at her face, she shut the door to her room behind her as quietly as she could before slumping down on her bed, head in her hands. 

  
She did this. She stopped them. The Maitland’s baby almost faded away without them, and it was her fault. Her fault. She did this. She forced the Maitlands to secretly move on to the Neitherworld. It’s her fault that they didn’t say goodbye.  _ Her fault. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's some complicated emotions going on right there. Poor Lydia is thinking a lot of thoughts and feeling a lot of feelings, some of them technically correct while other are completely wrong. This chapter was really fun to write, and writing the Maitlands and Betelgeuse interacting is always either funny or sweet. This time, it was a bit of both. 
> 
> ...but what was Betelgeuse going to say when he was holding Hope?


	22. Just Ask Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! The subject of this chapter is strangely appropriate for the occasion, even if I completely forgot that Valentine's Day was today, lol. I hope you guys enjoy!

It had been a week, and Betelgeuse was getting sick of it. It was like being a big dog in a house too small. A dog that desperately had to pee. Delia, who liked him--or just tolerated his presence, he wasn’t sure--was starting to get aggravated with him as he followed her around asking half a billion questions and messing with all her stuff. He avoided Charles altogether. 

Finally, he gave in and floated up the stairs. If she wouldn’t come out, he’d  _ make  _ her. 

Tossing himself against Lydia’s door, he drooped to the ground, imagining her sitting on the other side with her back to the door like they were in a stereotypical overdone drama.

“Lydiaaaaaaa…” he groaned. “Take me ouuuuuuuut.” 

There was no response from the woman, but he knew she was in there. He could hear her moving around inside. 

“And I mean that in all sense of the word. Drive me somewhere. Get me food. Stick a gun in my mouth.  _ Anything _ ! I’m down for it!”

At last, he heard her give a deep sigh on the other side of the door. “Not right now. I’m...busy. I’m working on photos. I don’t feel like it, anyway. Maybe Delia will take you out.”

“I think if I say one more thing to her, she’ll be getting me the last interpretation. No thanks.”

Hearing a soft sigh from inside, he grinned and waited impatiently at the door. That kind of ‘why is this happening to me’ sigh usually meant she was about to comply. However, the door never opened. When he jiggled the handle, he found it still locked. 

“C’mon, Lyds! What’s the big deal?”

“It’s nothing! I just need...time to myself.”

The poltergeist puffed out a sigh. Stubborn woman.  _ But! _ He wouldn’t let her know that she won...this time. Standing back to his feet, he dusted off his suit and announced, “Alright, then! I see how it is. I’ll just go to my room...and be a lone lonely loner...alone.” He glanced over his shoulder as he started to leave for a reaction, but there was none.  _ Curses, foiled again.  _

Doing just as he claimed, he stomped up to his new room in the attic and flopped down on the couch in front of the model town. While the Maitlands had their own copy in the Neitherworld, both parties quickly realized the two were connected, and Betelgeuse received an angry note from Adam stuck to the top of the model house telling him to “STOP eating the trees!”

The lights from the model cast a warm glow across the room, something Betelgeuse was still getting used to. He was accustomed to buzzing LEDs and eerie undulating glows. He had the courtesy to at least switch the beds before fully moving into the attic. 

There was one thing he kept from the Maitlands’ old room besides the model, which was too big to be moved out of the narrow doorway: the large full body mirror in the corner. He hadn’t got the chance to use it yet, but, if Lydia was going to continue ignoring him like she had been for the past week, why shouldn’t he go for a romp in the land of the dead?

Just thinking about it in that way made him reconsider it, but, eventually, he entered the reflective opening to the Waiting Room for the Dead. Sure enough, he manifested in a locker, and he could only jiggle the door a little as he was stuck inside, unable to phase out. Of course Juno made them  _ iron _ . 

Luckily, it only took him jiggling the handle and banging around inside for someone to realize that the locker was not empty. Lucien opened the door, a frail young man with light blond hair and pale blue eyes. His lips were purple and still foamy from the poison he had drunk in his last few moments alive, preferring death to being forced to leave his home in France. He had arrived just when Betelgeuse had moved up into his place as Juno’s assistant once he was transferred out of the Neitherworld’s CPS. He recognized him, of course, and raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh, it’s  _ you _ ,” he chuckled in his usual lofty way as Betelgeuse stepped out of the locker and brushed off the shoulders of his brown trench coat. 

“Good to see you, too,” Betelgeuse sneered at him, making the young man roll his eyes. 

“I imagine you’re here to see somebody?” Lucien asked as he and Betelgeuse stepped out into the twisting hall. “After all, when Maria told me you had left some fifty years ago, I swore up and down that you were never coming back as Juno’s assistant. But did that stop Maria from arguing with me? No. We haven’t had manicures ever again since that fight.” 

The poltergeist snorted. “Well, I’m not gonna get in the middle of that. Where is that diva, anyway?”

“She’s taking her break,” Lucien scoffed as he flipped through a file. “I was just passing by when I heard you making that ruckus. If you’re going to go see her, go tell her Lucien Beaumont was  _ right _ .”

Betelgeuse laughed and raised his hands peacefully as he walked backwards towards the stairway. “Alright, alright, I will...drama king.” 

It didn’t take Betelgeuse long to find the civil servants’ dormitories. He had never personally stayed there. As Juno’s assistant and a Guide, he was nonstop busy while the receptionists usually took shifts. There were too many to run the small Waiting Room at once, but there were never enough Guides. Of course, Miss Argentina’s room was easy enough to find seeing as she insisted upon having the star on her door from when she was alive. Sliding down the tacky casino rug lying on the hallway floor, Betelgeuse leaned up against the door and sing-songed into the crack. “I’m baaaaaaack~”

“Yes, yes, who is it?” Miss Argentina sighed on the other side of the door, and Betelgeuse pouted. He really had been away for too long if she couldn’t immediately recognize him just from that. Plus having her sound so exasperated from the other side of a closed door just worsened the bad taste Lydia left in his mouth. 

“You’re favorite poltergeist, Ghost with the Most, Bio-Exorcist extraordinaire?” he cooed, leaning against the door still. 

To his relief, the door opened a moment later, and a smiling Miss Argentina appeared on the other side. Her smile just widened when she saw his messy yellow-green hair. “ _ Bicho _ ! You are colorful again!” 

“Yeah…” He ran a hand through his hair.

She let him into her room. It was immaculately clean, as Miss Argentina always aimed for perfection in everything, but Betelgeuse was quick to disrupt that by sitting down at her vanity and spilling her makeup bag. 

As she picked up her things, she glanced up at him and asked, “So I suppose you want me to fix that, hmm?”

“Eh...maybe…”

“Maybe?” She stood and stared at him in surprise. 

He merely shrugged again. “Maybe. How’s the ole Junebug been treating you?”

Miss Argentina just stood there and squinted at him, bright red lips scrunched up together as she thought. “You...what’s wrong with you…?” she asked, which only made him laugh.

“There’s a lot of things wrong with me, Mimi. Pick one.” 

Sitting down on the small bed near the vanity, she crossed one leg over the other and studied her nails. The two sat there in silence, him staring at her, her staring at her hand. Finally, she let loose a sigh. “You’re worried.” 

Quickly he glanced at his reflection and saw that strands of purple had begun to overtake the green. Sighing, he leaned forward on the stool and propped his chin up in his hand. “Mimi… Am I...bad?”

She blinked. “What do you mean?” she laughed as she moved closer to him, so she was sitting on the edge of the bed. “I thought you knew you were bad and were proud of it.”

The malcontented Betelgeuse just made a bit of a face and shook his head. “Not that kind of bad. I’m not talkin’ about George Thorogood bad, I’m talkin’ about...uh... _ bad _ bad.”

Miss Argentina just looked at him. This wasn’t the first time she had played therapist for him. It was the least she could do to repay him when he was her therapist-mentor-adviser when she first arrived in the Waiting Room, ready to talk with her and walk her through and out of her depressed, self-deprecating mindset, even if it was far too late to save her life. 

“You mean...evil?” she asked warily.

“Not evil necessarily,” he winced. “Just...not good.” 

“Why do you think you’re not good?”

He shrugged his shoulders and slipped a hand under his jacket to adjust one of his suspenders. “I’unno. Things’ve just been sucky at the house since the Maitlands moved away. And I’m  _ tryin’  _ to help Lyds get over them, but nothing I do is working! Besides, it’s not like she comes outta her room much at all anymore. So maybe I should be more sad about the Maitlands not being here anymore? I dunno! I dunno if I’m the problem or Lydia’s the problem or the Maitlands are the problem or what!”

Miss Argentina sighed and grabbed his hand. “Oh,  _ bombon…  _ Lydia knew the Maitlands for a lot longer than you did. They had been with her for ten years, haven’t they?” Betelgeuse nodded, and she continued, “So it makes sense that she would be sadder that they left. And maybe… I don’t know… Maybe Lydia’s depressed? That’s what it sounds like to me if she doesn’t want to do much of anything, if that is the case.”

“Yeah. She just doesn’t wanna leave the house. Or her room for that matter.” 

“See? Maybe she just needs a little time to adjust, but make sure you don’t leave her alone for too long. But give her space, too.”

Betelgeuse groaned. “This is confusing.” 

“I know it is. I know it’s not really your forte, but try to be delicate with her for now until she begins feeling better. You remember how I was when I first came. I was sad and depressed and I wanted to shut everybody out. And I know you’ve gone through that, too. So please...try to be gentle and understanding, the way I know you can be. You might not be teaching her how to be a receptionist, but I still think you can help.”

“And how would I do that?” he asked, instinctively squeezing her hand when she squeezed his. 

Miss Argentina thought about it for a moment. “Maybe just sit with her in her room if she doesn’t want to go anywhere. Or if there was something that she mentioned going to, go do that. Or maybe--well, actually, that might not be the best thing. I forgot you two aren’t...um... _ amantes _ .”

A smirk crawled across his face. “Were you gonna suggest we make out until she doesn’t feel sad anymore?”

“No,  _ bicho _ ! It doesn’t work that way!” She smacked his shoulder. “I was going to suggest you take out on a date somewhere…” 

Betelgeuse sat up straight in his chair. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea…”

“Are you serious?” Miss Argentina asked in surprise. “I thought you two weren’t in love.” 

“Well, no, but since we’re gonna be getting married we could work on it a little bit before we get hitched.” Standing up from his stool, he paced around the room. “Yeah, I think I could take her on a date.” He deflated a little as he thought about it more. “I dunno if she’d  _ like  _ it, but…”

“But it’s worth a try!” Miss Argentina insisted, making him perk back up. “I-I mean, you never know until you try, right? What do you have in mind? What does she like?”

“Uh…” His mind went blank for a long moment, probably too long as Miss Argentina stared at him expectantly. “She likes...uh...photography? And...Halloween and spooky stuff...and…” He sits back down in his chair. “Gee, I don’t know as much about her as I thought…”

“Well, hey, you’ll have her whole life and afterwards to figure her out. Keep going!” 

“She likes a whole bunch of stuff,  _ but  _ she did mention this Halloween festival that comes ‘round every year, so…” he trailed off and grinned at her. 

“That’s perfect! It’s something she talked about going to and it’s something she likes! Oh,  _ bicho _ ! You’re going on a date!” She flung her arms around him as he laughed. She pulled back for a moment and held his face in her hands. “Is this your first date? I mean, Before, back in those times they didn’t really…”

“I guess this would be, technically,” he shrugged, which only made Miss Argentina squeal more with excitement.

“Ahhh, my  _ bichito  _ is going on a date! I’m so proud!” She kissed both his cheeks and then his forehead, making him wrinkle his nose and pull back. 

“Gross, Mimi,” he said, but he was laughing.

“What day is it? You  _ must  _ tell me how the date went after you go! Please, please, please!” 

He yanked up his sleeve to check his watches. “Halloween’s about a week away, so don’t get your panties in a wad.” 

“Too late! I’m so excited for you two!” she pranced around the room before suddenly stopping, whipping around, and pointing a finger in her face. “You had  _ better  _ treat her like a gentleman! No touching or holding or any of that if she doesn’t want to! Though it wouldn’t hurt to steal a kiss at the end--but no! You must have permission! Otherwise, I will beat you with my favorite pumps!” She slipped off her shoe, brandishing the pointed heel at him as a warning.

“Okay, okay, I will!” he exclaimed, raising his hands defensively, and Miss Argentina slipped her high heel back on and patted his cheek. 

“I know you will,  _ bicho _ . You care for her; I can tell. Now go back there and tell her you’re taking her on a date to the festival!” 

“Hang on, what?” Betelgeuse gasped as she pulled him up by the lapels and started pushing him towards her own full-body mirror. 

She grunted as she struggled to push him, seeing as he was much heavier than she was. “You must tell her! If you never say it’s a date, then it doesn’t count as one. Don’t be that kind of man and go back and say that it was a date! Come on, just be yourself--but gentlemanly--and say, ‘Lydia, I want you to go on a date with me’. That easy!”

Betelgeuse groaned as he resisted more. “It’s not that easy. Think about everything we’ve been through!”

“Well, either way, she still wants to go to the festival, so you’re going to end up there whether or not it’s a date. Just ask!” 

Finally, the poltergeist relinquished and allowed himself to be shoved through the mirror. He emerged, luckily--or perhaps unluckily--enough, through the window of Lydia’s room. She was sitting at her vanity, staring at a pile of polaroids, when he dropped in, landing unceremoniously on the floor next to her bed. 

When he looked up, he found Lydia standing in front of him. “You jerk! Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

Before he knew it, she was grabbing him by the lapels and pulling him towards the door. Flinging out his hands, he found one of the posts on her bed and grabbed on. “Wait, wait, wait!” he yelled as Lydia kept pulling. 

“You selfish, unfeeling--”

With a final yank, she managed to pry him off the bedpost, though she pulled perhaps harder than she thought she did, and sent them both jolting towards the wall. He hit the wall first, his back slamming into it, and she fell into his chest. 

As she slowly looked up at his face, he blurted out, “Will you go on a date with me?”

She blinked in surprise, her anger subsiding into a quiet still of shock. “Excuse me?”

“I mean...uh…” he cleared his throat as she backed off of him and scuffed his shoe on the carpet. He was terrible at this, and he could picture Miss Argentina telling him so. “Do you wanna go to the festival? The Halloween one.”

She blinked again as she began to overcome her shock over what he just said. A date? Did he mean it that way? “Oh...oh...I almost forgot… I guess I could whip something up in time.” She slowly started towards her closet, pulling out bolts of red fabric. 

“What are you doing?” he asked as he looked over the multitude of sewing supplies she was digging out of her closet.

“I’m going to be making my own costume. I have every year,” she replied, and Betelgeuse made the mental note in his mind to report to Miss Argentina.  _ She likes sewing _ . 

He looked over it all and started to nod. “So...we’re going?”

“Yes. I said we would, didn’t I?”

“Yep. Right, totally,” he said, nodding again as silently cussed himself out for only ever going to brothels instead of learning how to properly romance someone. It was harder than the ladies of the night made it seem.

After setting up her sewing machine, Lydia sat down at the folding table she pulled out and began to sketch in a drawing pad. The poltergeist glanced at her and then at the door. Once she finished her drawing, she looked up at him and then sighed with a small smile. 

“You can stick around if you want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter just proves that he's already her oversized lap dog XD! We'll see how well this "date" goes for them. On another note, thank to you everyone who takes the time to read my chapter, kudos, and leave comments! You guys make my day, and this Valentine's Day, you guys are some of the people I appreciate the most. Thank you <3


	23. Step Right Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's spoopy date time! Let's hope that Betelgeuse can get his act together and pull this date off. But will Lydia be able to work through her dark cloud to have a good time? Let's find out! Hope you enjoy!

It had taken slogging through her unmotivation and desire to just lie in bed and allow her room to crumble into a mess around her, but she finally finished it. Part of her was a little grateful for the urgency of finishing her Halloween costume. For a while, she thought she’d never drag herself out of the dark hole she dug herself into. She wasn’t out, but being forced to work on a project helped a little. If only the unfortunate events with the Maitlands hadn’t made her feel so invisible…

But no, she was going to wear this costume she spent a week agonizing over and have a good time on...her...date. Yes, a date. That’s what he had said when he asked. Inside, she tried not to panic. She hadn’t been on a date since she was dating Vincent way back when. Even that stung her heart a little, the wound still fresh even if she wanted to deny its existence. As she got everything ready to put on her outfit for the night, she tried to ignore that she was following the same process she had when she had gone to the festival with Vincent. She had almost kissed him that time, too. Clutching her hairbrush so tightly her knuckles blanched, she quickly dismissed the memory. No, no, no. She was still angry at him. She couldn’t feel sad about him. 

It wasn’t the most elaborate she had ever gone for a Halloween costume, but it was still good work by her standards, especially to have been finished in just a week. She had the black bodysuit from last year’s costume when she was a black widow spider. After slipping that on, she picked up her newly finished piece, a long red poncho with a spider web embroidery, and held it to her chest. As she had sketched it out to be, the front went down to about her knees while the back trailed behind her a little bit as a sort of tail. 

Once the poncho was on, she smoothed it out, checked herself in the mirror, and started doing her makeup: pink and purple eyeshadow, bold black wings, and a bright red lip to match the poncho. Grabbing her purple scrunchie, she pulled her hair into a spiky topknot on top of her head and secured it with a couple bobby pins. 

A quick knock rapped upon her door as she pulled on her fingerless gloves, and she hurried over and unlocked it before starting to put on her black platform combat boots. “It’s open,” she called. 

The door swung open, and Betelgeuse appeared all dressed up in his black and white suit, which made her smile as she hadn’t seen it for a while. He had let himself get lazy and started to wear Charles’s hand-me-downs and his Guide outfit more often. But now the suit looked nice and clean, free of its previous grass-stains with all its wrinkles pressed away, and his bright magenta shirt popped against the monochrome black and white. However, she did notice the rest of him didn’t exactly match the spruceness of his suit. He looked quite a bit like he did when he proposed to her in the model graveyard, even if his suit was cleaner. Mold and moss speckled his hands and neck and grew on the sides of his face and forehead as his hair, which looked much greener than it had before, stuck out wildly. As always, his jaundiced eyes were surrounded by dark shadows and purplish bruised circles, and his grin was wide and horrible with too many teeth. 

“I see you’ve chosen your costume,” she smirked. 

“Even on Halloween, I have to be me,” he chuckled, leaning against the doorway with his eyes closed as he smiled smugly. “Besides, this is the one day of the year I can go out and not get weird looks--not that I mind.” 

He took the liberty of entering her room and looking around. It was a bit of a mess. Sewing supplies were just about everywhere: pin cushions, bolts of fabric, scissors, even an ironing board. Besides that, it looked to him that she wasn’t being as tidy as usual. Everything was disorganized, which was a lot coming from a poltergeist. 

Then his eyes landed on her and...holy smokes. He shook himself a little and brushed out his suit. Stars, he was a lucky ghost. Well, he always knew she was pretty, he even said so to her face, but this was a completely different story! He couldn’t stop grinning as he watched her tie up her laces. It might be six months too early, but, Lordy-Lord, this was his wife! 

“So, are ya ready?” he asked, fidgeting in place. 

“Not yet.” She stood and put on some perfume at her vanity as Betelgeuse watched. That same perfume that she was wearing when she called him over the Ouija board. He fidgeted again. 

“Now I’m ready,” she said as she adjusted the baby hairs trailing down her back that weren’t long enough to be pulled up into the topknot. “Unless you want any?” she playfully spritzed some of the perfume at him.

“Nope! I already rolled in some gravedirt, so I’m all good. Let’s ditch this place!”

“Well, it’ll be a little bit of a walk,” Lydia said as she grabbed her purse. “There won’t be anywhere to park, so we can’t bring the car.” 

“And you say that with me around! Where’s it at?”

Lydia smiled, sensing where this was going. “In the middle of town, in the square.” 

Grabbing both her hands, he pulled her closer to him before spinning her around in a circle. Just as she started to try catching her breath from the quick motion, she looked up to find herself in the town square, their sudden entrance hidden behind a tree. She gasped a laugh and stepped out into the open as a kid who had been just at the right angle to see them stared. Betelgeuse grinned at him, mouthed the words, “No one will ever believe you,” and followed Lydia into the crowd of orange tents and costumed people. 

“Have you ever been to a festival like this?” Lydia asked, glancing back at Betelgeuse to make sure she wasn’t losing him in the crowd. 

“Well, way back when…” he trailed off and cocked his eyebrow at her, and she nodded in understanding. Back when he was alive. “We had a festival when the harvest was done. It was kinda like this, but, uh...smaller. And there was a lot more beer from all the wheat. Good times, good times.” 

Two children darted out of the crowd towards them, and Betelgeuse tensed, allowing them to pass through him. A moment later, a mother murmured an apology before following after them, she and all the people around apparently not noticing that the kids had phased through him. All except Lydia, of course. 

“Now how did you get away with that? They ran right through you,” Lydia said, raising an eyebrow. 

He just chuckled and offered her his arm, which she took. “People might be able to see me on Halloween, but, like the handbook says, they still won’t see the strange and unusual.” 

At that moment, two familiar faces pushed their way through the crowd towards them, and Lydia smiled. “Bertha and Prudence! I should have known you two would come down for the festival.” 

The two women stared at Betelgeuse in surprise before embracing Lydia; the poltergeist wormed his arm out of Lydia’s grasp so he wouldn’t be caught in the hugs. 

“Still making your own costumes, Lydia?” Prudence chuckled, noticing the seams on her poncho. 

Bertha laughed. “Of course she does!”

“Of course I do,” Lydia affirmed. “I’ve been making my own costumes since I was twelve. I’m not stopping now. Oh, and Be--er…” she paused and gave Betelgeuse a long look before clearing her throat. “Ryan’s here, too. He also made his own costume.”

Betelgeuse chuckled and rolled his eyes at her smirking gaze, and the two other women looked at him in surprise. “Oh! Well, I guess that means you two have more in common than we thought,” Bertha admitted.

They found themselves walking through the aisles of tents, Betelgeuse trailing a little behind the three women as he watched them and listened in on their conversation. 

“You know, Vincent called me the other day,” Prudence said out of the blue in the middle of the conversation, and Lydia’s eyes widened. Betelgeuse, too, felt himself go a little paler than usual, and he quickly caught up to the group. 

“Oh… What did he say…?” Lydia asked, her voice light.

Prudence shrugged. “He was just asking if I had seen you since the reunion. I told him I hadn’t, but now I guess I can say I have.” 

“Let’s not get too hasty here, Pru,” Betelgeuse interrupted just as Lydia opened her mouth. However, she didn’t seem angry that he butted in, and she nodded empathetically as he continued, “We just figured that we should let old things...move on and...um, yeah.”

Silence fell over the quartet wandering around the stalls, though it was hardly quiet with the chatter of people, clanging of games, and hum of music from the band situated in the back of the carnival. As casually as he could, Betelgeuse slipped around Bertha and pushed in to walk next to Lydia. 

“I’m glad you got your cast off!” Prudence exclaimed, breaking the silence.

Unconsciously, Lydia and Betelgeuse moved closer together. They both had been trying to forget about what happened that night with Vincent, but it seemed everything just kept bringing it back up. Lydia laughed nervously as Betelgeuse grunted and spat into the inside of his coat, making Bertha and Prudence stare at him in disgust.

“Darn allergies,” he offered, and the two women just shuddered a little and turned their attention back to Lydia. 

After a short, diffusing conversation, the two left to go find their respective husbands, and Betelgeuse let out a whistling sigh. “Fingers crossed ole Vinny boy ain’t here?” he asked Lydia.

She stood very still, rubbing her arms, and Betelgeuse took a step nearer to her. Her pale face was paler than it had been before, her dark brows crushing together worriedly, and her dark brown eyes wide. “What will happen if he finds me? Will he tell people that I’m crazy? What if they believe him? No one’s really liked me here…” 

The words caught in Betelgeuse throat, but he squeaked them out. “Wha--ah--hey, I’m not gonna let ‘em drag you off to the loony bin, okay?” He flashed a grin as he slung an arm around her shoulders. “Not over my dead body!”

She giggled a little, and he smiled back. That was exactly what he was going for. “Beej, you’re already dead.”

“Bingo. S’why I said not over my dead body.” Pulling a little on her shoulders, he said, “C’mon, Lyds, don’t let some bad memories ruin your fun. This thing only happens once a year, and it’s your last year as a free woman! Outta the two of us, you’re the only one who’s actually living, so live a little!” 

Lydia considered for a moment, swallowed nervously, and nodded. “You’re right. I can’t let anybody get in the way of my favorite holiday. Let’s...let’s…” she glanced around at the festivities around them with determination, “Let’s eat some food, play some games, and make real fools of ourselves.”

As Betelgeuse’s smile grew into a wider manic grin, Lydia felt herself chuckle. “Oh, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I got my steel-toed boots on; let’s go smash some pumpkins!” 

Near the edge of the carnival, the area was mainly filled with teens and younger kids who were about to go home, so they didn’t mind getting a little messy with pumpkin guts. The younger ones were jumping on the soft partially caved-in pumpkins so they wouldn’t hurt themselves, but the teenagers wielded sledgehammers to actually take a hard crack at the bigger, sturdier pumpkins. 

“Milady,” Betelgeuse said, bowing as he offered her a sledgehammer leaned up against the fence.

Taking the hammer with a grin, Lydia stomped around the small field until she found a big, tall pumpkin, kicked it over, and swung her weapon down with all her might. Betelgeuse winced and “ooo”ed like one would do watching a fistfight as he came up behind her, and Lydia wiped a pumpkin seed off her cheek. 

“You wanna try?” she asks, offering him the sledgehammer. 

He considered it for a moment, weighed the sledgehammer in his hands, then handed it back. “You know what? I’ll smash one when we come back to the pumpkins near the end. Figure it’d be best not to go around covered in pumpkin guts.”

“Good point.” Lydia tossed the sledgehammer and carefully stepped over the smashed pumpkins towards the fair. 

Following her, Betelgeuse grinned again and added, “Though, if you still wanna whack stuff, you could always try your hand at those test your strength games. I bet you’d be good at those seeing as you crushed that big ole pumpkin.” 

Lydia giggled as she slipped between the tents. “Shall we test that theory, then?”

She had that old mischievous light that had been missing for far too long--the same light she had when she was planning on fooling Claire. It was that same look that made him want to leap into every impish whim she came up with. With a cackle that made several passersby stop and stare in surprise, he followed her through the tents until they found the desired game. The bell stood almost twice Betelgeuse’s height, and it would ring occasionally when one of the beefier patrons of the carnival got egged into trying it. Mainly men surrounded it as they cheered when the bell rang and booed when someone fell short. 

As Lydia stepped up to the game, brushing off the rest of the seeds and stringy bits from the pumpkin, the poltergeist bristled as he kept a close eye on the men around her, watching their hands, watching their eyes. He had been a douche before, so he knew just how to look out for them. 

Patiently, Lydia watched the several failed attempts before her and waited for her turn. Some of the guys snickered as she struggled to pick up the sledgehammer, which was about the same size and weight as the ones in the pumpkin smashing patch, and Betelgeuse felt his insides flutter. She’s conning them! His wild mind exclaimed to him. Lydia Deetz is a hustler! 

He cleared his throat and stood near the back of the group, rubbing the thumb and middle finger of his right hand together. As Lydia raised the hammer for the blow, he stepped up and stood directly in front of the plate she was planning to hit. 

“Come on, Lyds,” he teased, eyebrow cocked. “We both know you’re not gonna hit it--and even if ya did, you definitely wouldn’t even get it halfway up.”

The other men quieted their murmurs, and some of the other bystanders stopped to watch him heckle her. However, Lydia just smiled, catching on. “Is that so? Well, it’s a good thing your head is a bigger target, hmm?”

She swung. The hammer whistled down towards the poltergeist’s head, and he puffed out of sight as it went through him, and Lydia heard the loud chime of a bell as the hammer crashed down into the plate. The crowd around them gasped and clapped as Betelgeuse reappeared next to Lydia, arm around her shoulders as they shook with laughter. 

“Lydia Deetz, ladies and gentlemen!” he exclaimed, gestured grandly towards her before leading her away.

As they got away from the crowd, Lydia’s laughter grew louder. “You just can’t resist making a spectacle, can you?”

“Hey, I’m the Ghost with the Most. Whaddya expect? Besides, you should’ve seen the look on those guys’ faces when they saw you hit the bell! It was glorious! I wasn’t expecting you to try and hustle them like that.”

She twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “Well, I learned it from you. What’s next?”

As it turned out, Lydia was just as good of a sharpshooter as she was at swinging a sledgehammer, and she won herself a large black unicorn plush that she carried around proudly as she and Betelgeuse went from stall to stall. Of course, she knew this carnival like the back of her hand, and she played every game and won. Betelgeuse followed, grinning, sometimes partaking, sometimes just watching her with glee, though there were some they both decided to skip. 

“Aren’t you gonna try the dunking for apples game? You don’t need air; I bet you’d crush it,” she teased. 

“And willingly stick my head in water? No thanks!”

Lydia rolled her eyes with a smile, handed him some more black licorice, and adjusted her side-saddle seating on the merry-go-round’s horse. Betelgeuse also sat facing her on the twin horse right next to it as they shared the snacks they bought, stole, and won like they were at a fine-dining restaurant instead of a circus ride that was making some parents dizzy. 

“We should do this every year,” Lydia said. “I thought the carnival would be right up your alley, and I was right.” 

Betelgeuse chuckled darkly. “What, did you get that idea from how I sent Mr. and Mrs. What’s-Their-Faces through the roof?”

Lydia leaned forward on her horse and took a sip of her soda. “And how you had a miniature merry-go-round on your head with bats and your own theme music coming out of nowhere? Maybe.”

They howled with laughter, both high on festivities and sugar and choosing to ignore the events that transpired soon after the incident they were referencing. As the ride slowed to a stop and Betelgeuse finished gnawing on the last of his licorice, Lydia looked out across the myriad of tents they had already visited, and her face lit up. Since they had arrived at the carnival, the sky and transitioned from a soft orangey-pink sunset to a dark purple night with stars speckling the sky, which only made the glory of the ferris wheel even more spectacular as it towered above the rest of the carnival, its lights twinkling brighter than the stars. 

“Beej--” she gasped, smacking his leg to get his attention. 

Choking on his cola, he coughed and looked up, pausing, too, when he saw the ferris wheel.

“Beej, Beej, we have to go!” Lydia exclaimed as she hopped off the paused merry-go-round. “They only bring the ferris wheel every two years! We have to go before it’s too late!” 

He followed her quickly, tossing his empty can into a trashcan. “Y’sure that’s a good idea? I have a slight feeling this chapter’s turning into a romcom parody…”

“Huh?”

“What?”

Lydia shook her head with a smile. “Nevermind. Wait here while I go buy tickets.”

So Betelgeuse stood near one of the tents and watched as Lydia walked up to the man in charge of the ferris wheel. They seemed to know each other--probably from the previous festivals--and he glanced at Betelgeuse when she pointed and smiled. Betelgeuse gave a short wave and scuffed his boot against the ground. He had that stupid warm squishy feeling on the inside, but he couldn’t tell if it was from all the warm, sugary junk food he just ate or… He shuddered, unwilling to finish that thought. 

Lydia was waving, so he pushed off of the pole he had been leaning against and walked over. The man in charge of the ferris wheel smiled wider and tipped his striped top hat to them as they boarded. After waiting just a moment for the rest of the cars to fill up, the wheel began to turn. Lydia leaned over the side and stared out at the rest of the town, which looked dark compared to the festival, even though she could see little kids scurrying around like ants as they trick-or-treated. As she looked over the now smaller world below them, her hands began to shake as she clutched the railing of her seat. 

“You good?” Betelgeuse asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Clearing her throat, Lydia sat straight in her chair and replied, “Yeah, I’m ok. I just...don’t like heights.” 

“Hey, this was your idea, don’t blame me!” he raised his hands as a sign of peace, and Lydia chuckled a little. 

“I wasn’t going to attempt that,” she smiled as she wormed deeper into her seat, her hand still gripping the railing. “It’s not even the height that gets to me, really…” 

“Oh yeah?” He fished around in his pockets, and Lydia frowned, thinking he was looking for his cigarettes. However, that knot in her stomach quickly unraveled and she chuckled a little as he withdrew a small bag of jelly beans instead and offered her some. 

“Have you ever heard of something called ‘the call to the void’?” she asked as she picked around the black licorice beans, which he was collecting with his other hand. 

Since he was busy chewing, he merely shook his head, and she continued, “It’s a kind of intrusive thought that...um… Well, basically, when I stand on something really tall and look down, I just get the urge to…”

“Jump?”

“Yeah. It’s scary to think about and I usually try to avoid heights unless it’s something special like a ferris wheel or an airplane. It’s why I usually avoid edges when we sit on the roof. Not everyone feels this feeling, so it’s kind of hard to explain...” 

“Makes sense to me. Maybe just don’t look down, then.” 

Lydia smiled and nodded as she fiddled with a loose string on her costume and looked back out over the city. From the massive height of the ferris wheel--especially now that they were reaching the top--she could see her house on the hill in the distance. Since they were so high up, it was quieter. Lydia’s eyes flitted from the house on the hill to the stars in the dark sky above them.

Betelgeuse sat next to her drumming his fingers on his thigh as he tried to imagine Miss Argentina’s voice in his head telling her what to do. She had significant others when she was alive, even if the relationship didn’t last, so she knew what to do, what was supposed to happen. Quietly Betelgeuse cleared his throat and leaned back against the seat, trying to decide if his next move was a wise one. 

“Have you ever been up this high?” Lydia asked. “I mean, I’m sure they had tall buildings back when you were alive, but…”

Betelgeuse shrugged. “I think I’ve been about this high before, once or twice.”

“What about a plane? Have you ever been on a plane?”

“Nooo…” he said as he innocently scooted closer to her. “Can’t say I have.” 

Lydia smiled. “Well, that’ll be something you haven’t seen yet. What haven’t you seen? I mean, after being around for so long, I figure you’ve seen most things.”

“There’s a lot of things I haven’t seen,” he chuckled as he quickly amended his thoughts from his initial reaction. Lydia was watching his face intently, so he took this opportunity to walk his fingers across the back of the car and fit his arm around her. “Like, uh…” his response stagnated as he cursed himself. It was a crime how good this felt, and it wasn’t even anything that passionate. If anything, it was the simplest, high school romcom move he could have chosen, but he could swear he felt his heart twitch. “Uh…”

Lydia just chuckled and crossed her arms. “You must have seen a lot if you can’t even think of anything.”

“I’ve never been on a plane!” he exclaimed. “And, uh, I’ve never set foot in Italy. Aaaaand I’ve never driven a car! That’s another one!” 

The ferris wheel hadn’t moved for about ten minutes, and he was starting to get nervous, a feat in itself. Thankfully, as he continued to loudly list things he had never done, Lydia looked over the side yet again and murmured, “I think we might be stuck. There’s a group below us.” 

Betelgeuse also peered over the side, and he could see the man with the top hat speaking with some other employees. Glancing at Lydia, he grinned a little. “You wanna get outta here?”

“Yeah, I think these heights are starting to get to me.” 

Sighing in relief when he heard her say yes, he stood and laughed. “Then you aren’t gonna like my solution.”

Lydia watched him carefully. “Betelgeuse…”

Brushing off his suit, he offered her his hand. “Care for a second dance?”

Despite herself, her face flushed slightly, but she grabbed his hand after a moment’s hesitation. Pulling her up, he lifted one of his feet up to rest on the railing, and she did the same, though her heart was beating like a kickdrum in her ears. 

“Betelgeuse, I don’t think--”

He stepped off, and Lydia started to scream his name for the third time, but an extra hand that wasn’t holding onto her hand and waist reached up and clamped her mouth shut. “Careful with those B-words.”

They were floating. Lydia glanced around and nodded quickly, which prompted him to let go of her mouth, and they began walking through the air over the carnival. Lydia’s breaths were short and quick, but she tried to control it as she dizzily took in the carnival below. She clutched his somewhat sticky hand and pushed up against him best she could, astutely aware that he was the only thing keeping her from plummeting fifty feet to the ground. As she felt his grip grow a little tighter on her hand and waist, she allowed herself to relax a little and began to enjoy the sights around her. Many of the children below who happened to look up stared and pointed, though their parents didn’t see them. 

Once they reached the entrance to the carnival, they slowly descended and continued walking back to the house. Now that her feet were firmly on the ground, Lydia’s legs wobbled, and she laughed as she still clutched his hand for balance. Instead of teleporting again, they chose to walk up the paved sidewalks up the hill towards the house. 

“That...was wild,” she giggled, and he grinned. 

“So you had a good time?”

Lydia smiled, gazing up at the ceiling of the covered bridge as they passed through it. “Well, it’s probably the best time I’ve had since I graduated high school.” 

Puffing his chest proudly, Betelgeuse chuckled, “Then mission success.” 

Lydia looked up at him, eyebrows raised, and replied pointedly, “You’re sweet.” 

Immediately, the ghost doubled over and mock-gagged. “Sweet?! Eugh, gross, no way! I’m a big bad poltergeist! I wreck stuff and kill things and prank people!” 

“And you absolutely haven’t been domesticated over the past six months,” Lydia teased. 

Betelgeuse opened his mouth to argue, but Lydia quickly hushed him. “Did you hear something?”

From the tenseness of her voice, he quieted down and glanced around suspiciously as they drew nearer to the house. Lydia pulled closer to him, her hand wrapped around one of his lapels, and Betelgeuse listened closely to the otherwise still air around them. Over the hum of insects, whispers echoed from the side of the house. Slowly, Betelgeuse took a deep breath as he sensed the two souls that he couldn’t see. They weren’t anywhere close to death, just a pair of kids. From the cracking pitch one of the kids’ whispers, he reckoned they were teenagers. Two boys. Two boys up to no good. 

Looking down at Lydia, a horrible grin crawled across his face, and he summoned one of the sledgehammers from the fair in his hand. “Wanna go smash some pumpkins, Lyds?”

“Betelgeuse,” she frowned, and he sighed.

“Alright, alright…” He handed her the sledgehammer. “You hold this and go walk up to them and tell them to leave. I’ll do the rest.” 

Lydia hesitated, glancing down at the sledgehammer in her hand, before nodding and walking around the side of the house. Fury started a fire in her belly when she saw the two juvenile delinquents dressed in all black with spray paint cans in hands, defacing the side of the house. The Maitland’s house. For a moment, part of her did want to “smash some pumpkins”, but she restrained herself and adjusted the hammer in her hands. 

What would Betelgeuse say? He would put on a good show…

“Excuse me, gents,” she said, putting on her best air of snarky confidence. “I think you’re marking your territory on the wrong house.”

“What, baby, maybe you want us to mark our territory on you--” 

The one who had replied turned to get a look at her, and, seeing her and her weapon, swore a little bit, his back bumping against the wall and smearing the paint. This alerted his buddy, who also turned and saw the dark-haired woman with her red spiderweb outfit and a long, heavy sledgehammer in her hands. 

“Drop the paint cans,” she ordered, and they did. 

“Take off your masks,” she continued, but this time they hesitated. 

Just as it seemed they were considering taking off instead of following Lydia’s wishes, two long, thin legs wrapped around their shoulders, and a five foot tall black and white spider with a green black widow marking on its abdomen appeared behind them.

“Do as the lady says,” it snarled, and the two boys screamed, tearing off their masks.

Of course, Lydia recognized them. They were two punks that hung around town throwing rocks at cars and smoking cigarettes outside their high school thinking that it made them cool. Weighing the sledgehammer in her hands, Lydia acted like she was considering using it before snapping, “Get off my property and never come back.” 

At this, the spider released the boys from its hold, and the two teens tore off screaming down the hill, the smell of urine hitting the air as they passed. The spider shriveled a little bit before turning back into a more humanoid form, one that was screeching with laughter. 

“Heck yeah, you little twerps!” Betelgeuse jeered after them, flipping them the bird as they ran, not looking back. Lydia quickly found herself pulled into a half-hug as he continued to yell at the boys. “No one messes with my girl or with this house!”

His girl? Her cheeks flushed at the thought, and she cleared her throat. “L-Let’s go inside and I’ll tell my dad about the graffiti. I’m sure he can hire somebody to paint over it.” 

“Oh--yeah,” he said, glancing back at the innuendos the boys had written on the side of the house. “Hopefully that won’t carry across to the one in the Neitherworld, or I’m gonna get some angry Post-It notes on the model.” 

Lydia giggled as they walked inside and sighed deeply as she yanked off her shoes with difficulty and tossed them into the living room to pick up sometime when it wasn’t near midnight. Holding the black unicorn to her chest, she glanced up at him as he unlaced his own combat boots. 

“Hey, um… Thanks for dragging me out of my room,” she murmured. “I know I...um...kind of didn’t… I didn’t really…” she rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m trying to do better is what I’m trying to say, I guess. Thanks.” 

The poltergeist snorted. “You know me, I’m down to go anywhere anytime. You just say the word.” 

Lydia smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind. Goodnight, Beej. Happy Halloween.” 

“Happy Halloween.” 

Quickly, Lydia retreated to her room, hoping that her cheeks would go back to their usual pale selves, but they remained rosy, embarrassed, and smiling. What was the matter with her? She was supposed to hate this, right? Hate him? If her fourteen-year-old self saw her now, she would have had a meltdown, no doubt. 

Setting the unicorn down on her nightstand, she happened to glance down towards the floor and noticed a mess of polaroids that had fallen off her nightstand. With a sigh, she knelt, picked them up, and began to set them on her desk, but one of them caught her eye. One of these pictures was different from the others. As she inspected it, she suddenly realized that she hadn’t taken this picture--she was in it.

It had no label penned on the bottom and no date. It was a picture of her and Betelgeuse in her room. She wasn’t entirely sure where he was sitting or standing since he had turned the camera around to get himself in the frame, too. It had half of his cheeky grin and part of his shoulder, over which Lydia saw herself bent over a sewing machine as she worked on her costume, completely unaware of what was happening with Betelgeuse or her camera. Smiling, she sat down on the bed and looked at his grinning face. It wasn’t like the other picture of him that she had. This one was in focus, and he wasn’t a faint monochrome wisp that was fleeing from the camera. He had deliberately gotten himself in the frame, looking like how he was really like in person. 

Lydia’s heart stopped. As she continued to look closely at his face, her hand began to shake. Something...something… She shook her head, closed her eyes, and tried to ignore it, tried to pretend it wasn’t there. No. No, no. Not again. 

There was a splotch of red on the side of his cheek. If he was alive, she could have perhaps dismissed it as a blush or something else, but his deathly pallid skin showed that it was clearly lipstick. 

It felt like she was being torn into shreds. She dropped the photo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oop-dee-doop! Don't mind me sticking some angst in a light-hearted chapter. Definitely won't have later ramifications, definitely not... heheh. 
> 
> But aside from that, I hope you guys enjoyed these two being dorks as they usually are when they're together. I always pictured Lydia being a beast at carnival games, so this let me bring my headcanon to life! Also, some details in chapter is inspired by one of the demos to the Beetlejuice Musical. It is both named after the song (Step Right Up) and talks about Lydia being stronger than she looks. I highly recommend it! It's a super fun song! 
> 
> Please feel free to tell me what you thought of this chapter! I always love reading comments, and they're probably my favorite part of posting my work! Plus, it helps me learn what you guys like to see! Until next Sunday! :D


	24. Panic and Respite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, dearies! Thanks for coming to see the new chapter, and I hope you enjoy it! I just wanted to give you a heads-up that this chapter does cover the topic of suicide. The area with the possible triggers will be separated with a warning in bold. If you do need to skip that certain area, there will be a short synopsis of what you might have missed in the End Notes. Stay safe out there, guys! :)

By now, Miss Argentina could sense when Betelgeuse entered a room. A certain electrical energy zipped through the air and into every soul there, announcing his presence. However, this time, she didn’t even get the chance to feel that energetic pulse as she click-clacked away on her typewriter. All at once, the window in front of her shimmered slightly, and the familiar black and white stripes began to pull themselves through the slight reflection in the glass. Gasping in surprise, Miss Argentina scooted away in her chair to give him room to emerge. 

After shaking himself off, he hopped off of his perch from the desk, a huge grin on his face. “Maria!” Giving a short zap to the chair to make it loosen the chains around her, he pulled her up and shook her shoulders a little. “You won’t  _ believe  _ what happened last night!”

It took her a moment as she thought over what could have possibly happened to make him so excited. It was a little tough to find something new to excite him seeing as he’d been around so long already. However, her hands began to flutter as she jumped up and down excitedly. “Did you kiss?”

“No,” Betelgeuse replied, still grinning. “ _ Better _ .”

“Better?” Slowly, her excited expression turned a little suspicious. “What’s better than a kiss, Be-attle? Surely you didn’t--”

“What? No, no, no, get your mind outta the gutter, Mimi!” 

Scoffing, she rolled her eyes. “Did you just stay that to me?”

“Yeah I did. I guess it wouldn’t be better than kissing to you,” Betelgeuse shrugged. “As a guy who’s done it half a million times…”

“Oh, hush-hush. Kissing Lydia will be different--better!” Miss Argentina snatched up his hand and began to pull him away from the front desk where some of the ghosts in the waiting room had begun to listen in on their conversation, anxious for anything interesting to happen as they waited for their number to appear on the screen. 

Once they had found two chairs in the lounge room, Miss Argentina sat down, crossed her legs like a proper lady, and placed her hands on her knee. “Now, tell me everything!”

“Well, I found out that Lydia’s really good at carnival games,” Betelgeuse replied, nervously twisting a strand of hair around his fingers, a tick that he had picked up from the other ladies who worked in the waiting room. “Aaaand she likes to sew! She makes her own Halloween costumes.”

“That’s a good start,” Miss Argentina nodded. “But what did you  _ do  _ on the date?”

“Well, we played a whole bunch of carnival games and ate a whole bunch of junk food.”

Sighing deeply, Miss Argentina rubbed her forehead. “ _ Ay, ay _ ,  _ bichito _ . Please tell me there was at least one romantic part of this date.”

The poltergeist paused to think about it, rubbing his chin as Miss Argentina began to look more worried. 

“I...uh...put my arm around her...once, twice maybe?” 

“Thank goodness! Be-attle, you are such an awkward turtle. You had me worried for a moment, but you came through! I’m so proud!” She pinched his cheek, which made him groan and rub his cheek when she let go. 

“Yeah, well, after it all we went home and scared some chumps who were spray painting the house.  _ That  _ was the best part of the whole thing!”

“And, uhum…” Leaning forward slightly, Miss Argentina whispered loudly, “Did you get anything after that?”

“After that?”

A pout formed on her lips. “What? No kiss--not even on the cheek?”

Betelgeuse shook his head. “You told me not to...y’know.”

“Ugh!  _ Ay de mí _ !” Miss Argentina exclaimed, throwing her hands up with frustration. “You both are going to make me go crazy!” Standing in her chair, Miss Argentina pointed a finger in his face. “Listen here,  _ muchacho _ . Next time you take that girl on a date, you can’t just drop her off to her house or room or whatever you left her at and just  _ leave _ ! If you want a goodnight kiss--even if it’s just on the cheek--then you must beg for it! Linger, but not too long. She has dated a young man before, yes? Then she should know what you’re asking for when you stick around after the date is done. She’ll understand that you are a poor man ensnared by her beauty and charm.” She patted his cheek. “But don’t stick around too long. If it seems like she’s not going to give you one, then leave her be.”

“This is just confusing.” 

Miss Argentina was about to open her mouth to speak again when the attention of both ghosts was diverted by an iron locker assembling itself into line with the others. Immediately, Miss Argentina’s shoulders slumped, her spunky demeanor immediately shifting. 

“Looks like we’ll have someone joining the ranks,” Betelgeuse murmurs, forgetting for a moment that he had escaped the snare of being a civil servant.

Miss Argentina let go of Betelgeuse and slowly walked over to the newly built locker, opening it and pulling out a file. “I wonder why they chose to…” she trailed off as she stared down at the open folder, her green skin going a little grey, and Betelgeuse stood. 

“What’s the matter.”

“B-Be-attle… You must go home. You must go home now!” Miss Argentina exclaimed as she grabbed his sleeve and began to pull him towards the nearest reflective surface in the lounge. 

He resisted for a moment, but when he saw the tears coming into her eyes, he allowed himself to be pulled along. “Mimi, what’s a matter? What’s wrong?”

Too distraught to explain, she shoved the file into his hands before continuing to pull him. It only took him glancing over the file name for him to sprint towards the door to the living world at full speed, letting the file that read “Lydia J. Deetz” on the front page fall to the floor. 

**\--Suicide Trigger Warning Start--**

Once again, he landed unceremoniously on the living room floor, but this time, he didn’t linger. He scrambled to his feet, tore up the stairs, and threw open the door to Lydia’s room so forcefully that it rammed into the wall, denting the sheetrock. Betelgeuse stared into Lydia’s empty, darkened room. Despite being dead for hundreds of years, Betelgeuse began to sweat, freezing cold perspiration slowly forming on his forehead and starting to run down his face. His heart twitched a few times before starting up like an old, rusted generator, chugging once-stagnant blood and adrenaline through his veins. 

“Lydia?!” 

Not wasting any time, he abandoned the empty room and phased through the wall to the bathroom, which, like the bedroom, was also dark and empty, no signs of a close to death Lydia anywhere. 

“C’mon, babes, where are you?” He choked on air as his stomach knotted up. “Don’t leave me yet!”

Lydia’s parents also weren’t in the house, making Betelgeuse think, perhaps, they were at the hospital if Lydia was already fading--the very thought of that making him shudder--but he found an untouched note on the kitchen table, which read, “Headed to town! Be back around 7 with dinner! Call if you need anything! --Delia”. 

Setting down the note, Betelgeuse waved his hand at the drawers, using his usually ignored traditional poltergeist abilities to yank open all the kitchen drawers at once and searching through the knives. He had looked through them before and counted them when he was bored--not one was missing. That could only mean…

He slammed them all shut at once with a loud clatter and took off through multiple ceilings towards the roof. It was just starting to get dark now, and he glanced around anxiously as his boots hit the dark shingles of the room. Quickly, he scrambled over the slanted part of the roof, sending a shower of shingles down into the yard. When he reached the very top of the roof, he grasped onto the chimney. There, beyond the chimney, her legs pressed against the roof’s railing, stood his wife-to-be. The quietness of the moment hit him like a freight train. 

She stood leaned over the railing, hands wrapped around the cold metal with her unkempt black hair lying limply on her shoulders. As she gazed over the town where they were shutting down the carnival, her face was solemn, almost serene if her eyebrows weren’t crushed together with emotion. Her hands on the railing shook. There was no note. 

Betelgeuse slowly let loose the shaky sigh that had been building up inside him since he arrived back in the house. The last time she had considered this path, she was too young to understand fully what it meant. She still didn’t understand the consequences of the actions she was ruminating upon. Last time, she had been a kid unaware of how shallow her troubles were. What was pushing her to the edge now? She seemed happy enough, but that didn’t mean she was happy. He knew that well. 

He couldn’t help but feel that cold anger in his stomach. Life was the only thing he had ever wanted for almost a thousand years, and she was thinking about throwing it away. Letting go of his fast hold of the chimney, he stumbled down the angled roof to the flatter area where she was standing. She didn’t turn, not even aware of his presence as she normally was. 

“Lydia!” 

The sound that came out of her was an amalgam of a startled yelp and a scream, and every suppressed guide instinct burst up through him when he saw her turn to face him too quickly, throwing her off balance.

She fell. 

She lost her grip on the railing, and her unsteady weight had been too heavy. Her legs that were pushed up against the railing as she stood looking outwards toppled over it as she jolted in alarm at the sudden voice. 

For a moment, Betelgeuse was frozen as his black and white suit morphed into the familiar red vest, knee trousers, and long trench coat. After a moment, he shook himself free of the haze and tore the railing apart as he dove after her over the side of the roof.

Her hands grasped at nothing, her hair flew in her face, and her body plummeted down the side of the white building, making Delia scream as she and Charles could see Lydia’s dark silhouette falling even from the driveway. If the wind wasn’t whistling in Betelgeuse’s ears, he might have heard Lydia scream his name. Once... 

_ “I want to get in.” _

She was falling faster, but, somehow, he was catching up to her. In a few moments, she knew that she would be gone. Even if she managed to survive the fall if it meant every bone in her body would be broken, she could see the birdbath with its sharp, pointed end pointing towards the sky like a deadly arrow. Twice...

_ “...why…?” _

All the wind flew out of her body as she feet hands wrap around her waist and yank her back up moments before she was to collide with the deadly sculpture. The dark purplish sky above her, its few stars speckling its surface, spun faster than the carousel from the night before as the pair rocketed back up to the roof, past the roof, well above the house and the trees. 

Her hands dug into the familiar coarse leather of Betelgeuse’s jacket, her long nails scraping its finish. Their bodies pressed up against each other while they both heaved for breath. He kept a firm hold on her, and her arms tightened around his neck. 

“Please don’t let go of me…” she whimpered as tears began to roll down her face. 

**\--Suicide Trigger Warning End--**

He held her, their feet dangling above Lydia’s would-be grave. Resting her forehead on his shoulder, Lydia let out a sob. Charles and Delia’s voice called distantly from down below, but the ghost didn’t sink down to meet them as Lydia feared. Slowly, his feet begin to move, walking in a similar fashion to how he had done the night before as they waltzed over the fairgrounds. This time, they were making their way back to the roof. The torn, shriveled remains of what once was the roof’s railing clinked against their shoes as they landed, and Lydia began to cry harder as she felt her feet touch solid ground again. He didn’t let go of her. 

They stood on the roof for a long time as Lydia sobbed into his shoulder, her tears eventually soaking through the fabric. Finally, as her tears ran out, she felt him give her a gentle pat on the shoulder, though he didn’t move to let go of her. 

“Do I need to ask what that was?” he asked, which made Lydia sob again. 

“I...I didn’t mean… I wasn’t going to… I… It was an accident, I swear…”

“Maybe, but you were thinkin’ about it, weren’t you?”

He pulled away just slightly to at her, and she scrubbed at her tear-reddened face. She didn’t want to answer. She had a feeling he already knew what that answer was going to be. Still, she managed to pull herself together and gave a simple nod. 

The anger she was expecting didn’t come. His gray eyes looked bluer now than they ever did before as they avoided her face. He worked his jaw and bit his lip as he tried to think of something to say. 

“Why?”

Lydia flinched at the question, the same one he had asked her the first time she met. He had finished running his mouth, silenced at five simple words that she had said. The first time, he was confused. But now he just sounded hurt. 

Lydia looked down at their shoes, her head resting on his chest. “Take me back to my room, and I’ll show you why.”

So he did. Leading her down the trapdoor to the attic, he never let go of her arm as they climbed down the ladder, then down the third flight of stairs to the upstairs bedrooms, then into her room. He shut the door behind them as Lydia pulled herself free of his grasp and walked slowly over to her vanity. Her hands shook as they shifted through the pile of polaroids sitting in front of her. She just felt ashamed. Everything that had gone and was going through her head just seemed stupid and meaningless to her now.

Nevertheless, she needed some kind of answer from him. At this point, she’d even take an excuse. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked back over to him, her head low, with a pair of polaroids in her hand. When offered, he took them and looked them over. 

The first was one he knew well. He had spied it in her room ten years ago as he snooped around, invisible, incorporeal, and unsummoned. Captured in the polaroid, two white, faintly floral sheets hung in midair in the form of people, eyeholes cut out for sight. Scribbled in Lydia’s messy teenaged handwriting, the note “No Feet?” was almost faded from the decade old pen. 

He looked at the other polaroid, and, as Lydia predicted, his head cocked slightly in confusion when he saw the familiar picture he had sneakily taken with her camera while she was sewing. All he saw in the picture was part of his own grinning face and Lydia hunched over her work table. Glancing up at Lydia, he asked, “So you’re saying I’m why…?”

She swallowed nervously, quick to correct him. “No… Not directly, no.” 

She touched her cheek before nodding for him to look again, and he did. When he saw the faint smudge of red lipstick on his cheek in the picture, he cursed a little and covered the picture with the photo of the Maitlands. Lydia just watched his face, analyzing his reaction. 

He knew what Lydia was presuming. He knew that lipstick. He knew that he’d made a mistake. They both did. Even just the slight mark from the picture, he could tell it was Miss Argentina’s signature shade. She had kissed his cheek the way she always did whenever he stopped by to visit. 

“Oh, boy…” He shuffled over to Lydia’s bed and sat down, laying the pictures down on her pillow. When Lydia just watched him, he patted the place beside him on the bed, and she followed suit, sitting next to him with her knees to her chin. “Where do I even begin, Lyds?”

“Maybe with the beginning?” she asked, her voice croaking from her previous tears. 

Frowning, he looked over at her, which just made her bury her face in her knees. She didn’t want to look at him. “Maybe let’s start with why did you even think about ending it all over me and the Maitlands?”

“It’s the same as it was before. The Maitlands had left. My parents...are better than they were, but…” she shook her head. “I shouldn’t be relying on them anyway. I shouldn’t even  _ be here _ . And then you… I thought you were leaving me for other people. I thought I was all alone again. I didn’t want to be dragged into marrying you if you were just going to...you know…”

“So you thought dying would be better?” he asked. 

“I wasn’t going to jump off the roof!” she suddenly snapped, uncurling from her ball. “You startled me!”

“That’s not the point,” he replied, still calm in an almost eerie way. “You need to get over yourself and really think about this.”

She paused, her anger fading away into embarrassment and misery again, and Betelgeuse sighed before scooting closer and wrapping an arm around her. “C’mon, Lyds. You’re a big tough girl who can tie up her own combat boots and everything. I know you can manage without the Maitlands. And you don’t need me. You  _ never  _ needed me.”

She looked up at him. He was smiling at her, eyebrows raised. “I--”

“Am I right or am I right?”

“I guess you’re right…” Lydia murmured as she rhythmically kicked her legs back and forth over the side of the bed. “But that’s still no excuse for you to go and cheat on me. It’s just not fair! You had a right to be mad when I was planning to meet up with Vince, and I have a right to be mad when you run off with some...some…” 

“And I’m gonna stop you right there.” He held up a finger to shush her. “First off, I wasn’t runnin’ off with somebody.”

“But--”

“Hear me out! Her name’s Maria Alverez, but she prefers Miss Argentina. She kisses everyone on the cheek, not just me. Heck, she’ll kiss you, too, if you let her.” 

Lydia just sat there, her mouth slacked open a little as she stared at him before she curled in on herself. “Oh… Oh, I’m so sorry…” 

To her surprise, Betelgeuse just threw his head back and laughed. “Hey, I mean, you had the right to think I was cheating. Yer a good judge ‘a character. But you don’t have to worry about me, babes; after all that’s been goin’ on, my wanderin’ boots are off for good.”

Laughing weakly, she looked up at him. “Are you serious? I thought you…” 

As she trailed off, the ghost stood and shifted from foot to foot. She couldn’t exactly place his expression, judging by the light dust of color that was starting to show on his dead face, he at least  _ looked  _ a little embarrassed. 

“Hey, we’re engaged, aren’t we? No take-backsies. You don’t run off seein’ other guys, and I’ll follow quid pro quo. We got a deal?”

He extended his hand, which was still speckled with moss and mold from the day before, but Lydia still took it. After giving her hand a mighty pump up and down, Betelgeuse released her and added, “Now, no more of this gloomy sad business, mkay? I’m sure you’re parents are gonna be runnin’ up here any minute to do whatever gross sugary stuff parents do. Believe it or not, we  _ can  _ see you.” 

Lydia bit her lip as she felt tears come into her already sore eyes again. “Thanks… Thanks for...everything, Beej.”

He sighed and put his hands on his hips, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Ah, c’mon, Lyds, don’t start cryin’ again, it makes my knees hurt. And don’t gimme a hug either, no, don’t--”

He took a step back as Lydia started to get up, but he didn’t resist as much as he could have as she slipped her hands inside his leather trench coat and gave him a tight hug. Even though her own breathing was a little shaky from sniffles, she felt him sigh as he patted her back again. 

“Boy, you got me good, Lyds,” he murmured. “I don’t scare easy, but this time you’d done scared the bejeebies outta me. Don’t do it again, y’hear?”

“I promise,” Lydia chuckled with a sniff, not bothering to ask what a bejeebie was. 

“Good. I don’t wanna see that pretty face behind the screen in that darn Waiting Room. Mimi and I’d be right pissed.”

Lydia paused, and her arms slacked around him. “...what?”

He stared blankly at her for a moment before realizing what he said and yanking up his sleeve to show the myriad of watches on his arm. “Gee, lookit the time! I’d better go tell Miss Argentina you’re okay!” 

He started to move towards her mirror, but she grabbed the lapels of his jacket. “No, wait--BJ, please!”

Betelgeuse cursed under his breath. Why did he have to be such a sap for this woman?

“Yeah?” he turned to look at her. She was biting her lip, tears threatening to come into her eyes as she came to the gut-wrenching realization.

**\--Suicide Trigger Warning Start--**

“Did you...did you…” Her eyes slowly trailed down to his wrists. Most ghosts had a death wound. She had seen the Maitlands’ briefly: cuts, bruises, drenched hair and clothes. They hid it most of the time. Was he also hiding it?

“You’re not gonna find anything there, Lyds,” he chuckled, though he still pulled in his wrists to rub at them. “You’d have better luck if you were talkin’ to Miss Argentina, but…”

“So you did,” Lydia replied, staring up at him, her soft brown eyes wide with shock. “You...you killed yourself…” 

Clearing his throat loudly, he opened his coat partially and spat into it. Lydia just watched him, her gaze growing more intense, which only made him more and more nervous.

“Am I wrong?” 

He wiped his mouth with her sleeve, and shifted his feet towards the mirror. “I really need to be goin’, Lyds. Mimi’ll have my head if I don’t report back.”

“It’s why you were scared, weren’t you?” Lydia continued, ignoring his excuses. “Because you knew what would happen. You never told me how or why ghosts have to work in the Waiting Room. Otho was right. People who...commit suicide…they work as civil servants…”

“Forever,” Betelgeuse finished. 

Biting her lip, Lydia nodded. That was answer enough for her, but she didn’t let go of him. She started to pull on his lapels as she moved to sit down on the floor, and Betelgeuse swore quietly before following her down. He’d much rather be in the Waiting Room getting yelled at by Miss Argentina or, heck, Juno even rather than talk about this. He’d walk through the Lost Souls Room and back rather than tell Lydia what happened.

“What happened?”

He groaned and cursed himself again. “Why do you wanna know?”

“Because I’m your fiancée,” Lydia replied. However, after a moment, she sighed and rested her chin on her pulled-up knees. “...please? I feel like I don’t know anything about you anymore.”

Giving a deep sigh, Betelgeuse ran a hand down his face and groaned, but, eventually he gave in. “Do you wanna just see it?”

“See…?”

Standing up, he brushed himself off, took off his hat, and ran a hand through his hair. Lydia also started to stand in case he tried to make a break for the mirror, but she sat back down in shock as his clothes shifted once again, this time to fine clothes Lydia remembered seeing in history books in school: a dark red doublet, black hose, and riding boots that went up to his knees. He paused from his transformation, glanced down at her. “Ridiculous, I know. You want me to keep goin’? Cuz it just gets uglier from here. Way uglier.”

When she nodded faintly, he sighed and waved his hand, and Lydia watched as his clothes and hair took on a slightly darker shade as they started to drip with dark, murky water. Moss and mold grew rampantly across what little exposed skin she could see, and she could picture it crawling across his entire body like a maze. She started to open her mouth, but when the bruise around his neck began to appear, she gasped and sat back, covering her mouth with her hand. Finally, the rope came along with the bruise it was chafing, thick, coarse, and tied in a tight noose.

Once she overcame her initial shock, she slowly looked up at him and asked. “Is...is this...what you look like?”

“Back then, yeah,” he said, crossing his arms. “I usually cover it up, a’course. Most ghosts don’t like showing off their death-wounds unless it’s somethin’ they’re proud of. And, in the Waiting Room, your death-wound is kind of part of the uniform. We can’t hide it.” 

Sighing shakily, she looked him up and down slowly. “You don’t  _ have  _ to hide it anymore… Did you...drown?”

He merely laughed. “I was dead before I hit the water, sweetie. No one bothered to recover the body, so, boom, here I am, algae and all.”

“Is that why you hate taking showers?”

“Well, now, let’s not extrapolate on this!” he exclaimed, waving his hands defensively. “I guess you could say that. I just don’t like being wet. It drips everywhere and then you have to clean it up--eugh! I dunno how the Maitlands do it.” With a snap of his fingers, he reverted back to his drier, modern form in the two-piece black and white suit. 

An awkward silence passed between them, Betelgeuse scuffing his shoe on the carpet as she twisted her hair around her fingers. 

Finally, Lydia broke it with the question she had been wanting to ask since the beginning of the conversation. “Why’d you do it?”

“What?”

“Why did you...um...kill yourself?”

He just stared at her blankly as his hand instinctively rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s...kinda a rough question. I guess the simplest answer would be that...y’know… I was all alone. Literally. I was stupid, greiving, and half-drunk if I remember correctly. I don’t remember much of my death. Made me one of the lucky ones workin’ in the Waiting Room. I regretted it every second of every day I worked for that witch, Juno, so when I escaped, I was gonna get what I was stupid enough to throw away before.”

**\--Trigger Warning End--**

Lydia nodded. “And that’s why you tried to marry me.”

“And that’s how we’re both in this mess.” He laughed a little and wiped at his eyes. “Hoo boy, now look whatcha did. I almost let out my last tear. ‘M tryin’ to save that bad boy for something really important.”

Lydia smiled a little, and they both turned as they heard footsteps running up the stairs. 

“Well, that’s my cue,” Betelgeuse chuckled as he strolled over to the mirror. “See ya tonight, Lyds, if ya don’t get smothered by your parents.” 

Standing, Lydia followed him as he walked over to the mirror. When he turned to dive through it, she touched his shoulder, and he paused. 

“Lyds, seriously, I need to…”

Lydia just smiled, shook her head, and reached up. Taking his face in her hands, she pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek before slowly letting go of him and walking away to the middle of the room near her bed. 

He stared at her for a moment as she unlocked the door to her room before disappearing through the rippling, glowing mirror just as the door opened and Delia threw her arms around Lydia, who leaned into her step-mother’s embrace and closed her eyes. 

“Thank you, Betelgeuse,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It. Has. Happened! I didn't get the idea to add in that kiss on the cheek until the very end, but I am so glad that I did! And we got some more of Beej's backstory, but not everything...yet. Be sure to tell me what you thought of this chapter! Until next Sunday!
> 
> Here are the synopsizes of the two Trigger Warnings:
> 
> 1\. Realizing that Lydia may soon be joining the ranks of the Waiting Room, Betelgeuse tears through the house to find her, and he eventually finds her on the roof, watching as the Halloween fair from the day before gets taken down. He accidentally startles her, making her lose her balance and fall off the roof. However, he jumps after her and catches her, pulling her back to safety on the roof. 
> 
> 2\. Lydia realizes that, in order to be a part of the Waiting Room's staff, Betelgeuse must have killed himself. He shows her how he looked back when he was alive, including his death-wound. He tells her (trying to avoid saying the true reason outright) that he died because he was grieving and drunk. 
> 
> If you have ever felt the urge to end your life, I promise you that there are people who know you are there and care about you. I care about you, too. Everything will get better, I promise.


	25. An Open Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The land of the dead was bound to come up again, and boy am I excited for this chapter! After the angst of the previous chapter, I'm ready to let jokes and fluff roll! Hope y'all enjoy!

Black leggings, black shoes, black eyeshadow…purple dress. Lydia stood in front of the mirror, studying herself. She had seen the dress while looking for accessories for her wedding dress with Delia. When her stepmother noticed her staring at it, she was delighted at the prospect of Lydia wearing a color other than black and purchased it for her no matter how Lydia argued.

Getting dressed was one of the few moments when Lydia was alone, so she savored it carefully. After the scare all four members of the house had a week ago when Lydia fell off the roof, Delia, Charles, and Betelgeuse refused to leave her alone. There was always at least one keeping an eye on her as she went about her day. It was a little draining, honestly, but she understood their concern. The only one who really accepted that it was an accident was Betelgeuse, but she had told him about her harmful intrusive thoughts, so he lingered around her anyway. 

Carefully rubbing an old yet never worn before purple and pale pink sash that Delia had gotten for her when she was still in high school between her fingers, she tied it around her waist. The purple was a little lighter than that of her dress, and the pink complimented both purples beautifully. Sighing, Lydia stared with dismay at the pink. There was nothing wrong with wearing pink, but it was a little too close to red for her tastes. That was part of the reason why Lydia had never worn the sash when Delia bought it for her; the wound of the attack was still too fresh. She was better about it now, though. Making that red spiderweb poncho was a huge step in the right direction of being not averse to red clothing anymore. 

The sound of the doorknob jiggling and a knock on her door a moment later interrupted her thoughts, and she hurried to tie the sash into a knot. “Who is it?” she called as she accidentally tied her finger into the knot somehow and struggled to yank it back out. 

“It’s Delia! Can I come in?”

“Oh, u-uh…” Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of an excuse quickly enough, so she finished with a short, “Sure!” 

Lydia freed her finger and rushed to open her locked door only to find Betelgeuse, not Delia, in her doorway. Phasing through her, he entered her room, and Lydia whipped around. “Rude!” 

He just smirked and gave her a shrug before heading for the mirror. After her initial frustration died down, Lydia’s cheeks turned a bit pink. Last time he was in her room...but it was just a kiss on the cheek and nothing more. He wasn’t making a big deal out of it, and it probably wasn’t an unusual thing to him, anyway. Once he had returned from visiting Miss Argentina, he hadn’t said a word about it to her. 

“Where are you going? Are you going to the Neitherworld?” As she spoke, she looked him up and down. 

Entering the mirror, Betelgeuse hesitated and looked back at her. “I’m going home for a little while.”

“Home?” Lydia asked, blinking in surprise. “But I thought you said--”

He laughed at her. Lydia blushed a little more and sat down on her bed. “You can’t blame me; you told me that you worked for Juno your whole afterlife.”

At the name of Juno, his smile stiffened a little, but he maintained it. “Well, yeah, but I didn’t bounce straight from the Waiting Room to the Maitlands. And I had to have somewhere to stay other than that stupid old model.”

Lydia just stared at him with those dark brown eyes, eyebrows raised and eyes half-lidded. Her signature death-glare, “I can see right through you--don’t you dare make that pun, Betelgeuse” stare. He was still smirking at her, his smile a little easier now than it had been a moment ago. 

“What, you wanna see it?”

She shook her head. “I’m never going back to the city,” she told him, shivering a little at the memory of the emptiness she felt running aimlessly for the streets, calling his name. 

He shrugged slightly as he seemed to consider her statement. After a moment, that mischievous grin that she had grown to love seeing grow on his face appeared. “You know what? I’ve got something even better--and it’s not in the city.”

Not in the city? Lydia frowned but stood, pushed back her stool, and walked over to him. “Alright, I’m intrigued. But you have to promise we won’t go into the city.” 

“Scout’s honor~” he swore, holding up two crossed fingers. When Lydia crossed her arms and glared at him, he chuckled and dropped his hand. “Alright, alright, I won’t. Get a sense of humor, will ya?”

Lydia merely shrugged and snatched up a journal sitting on her vanity. Inside the mirror, Betelgeuse leaned forward to get a better look, squishing his nose up against the glass. 

“Hey, are you gonna pop the B-words or not, huh?”

“Just a second. I’ve been working on something.” Her flipping grew faster until she found the desired page. “I’ve been writing poetry lately…” 

“Poetry?” Betelgeuse snorted. “Sheesh, you really are Edgar Allen Poe’s daughter.”

Pouting, Lydia waved her hand at him dismissively, and he rolled his eyes before settling down with his elbows resting on the edge of the vanity and his chin in his hands as he watched her turn towards him and begin to recite her poem. 

“With heedful feet I walk upon these ghastly grounds  
To the place where ghosts dance at night and danger knows no bounds  
Tonight, be free those killed by blade and noose,  
Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!”

She dropped the journal as she felt herself being pulled by that unearthly power towards the mirror. As her regular view of the living world became blotted out by the dark tower she had found herself in the first time she traveled with Betelgeuse to the realm of the dead, she looked up at Betelgeuse, who was holding her bridal-style in his arms, and smiled as she gasped breathlessly. “Well? What do you think?”

“Don’t you think all that fancy-schmancy wording is too, uh...fancy-schmancy for me?” he asked as he carried her up the steps to the twisted teardrop-shaped door. 

“Don’t be silly. But...uh...I could tweak it a little bit.” When he opened the door with a third arm, Lydia shivered as the cold blast of air whistled through her. “W-Where are we going again?” 

She only received a laugh in return as he stepped out into the open air. “You’ll see, Lyds, you’ll see. Close your eyes, it’s a surprise.”

She took a moment to glare at him so he would know she wasn’t a fan of this plan before closing her eyes. As she felt the dank warmth of the tower disappear and his arms tighten around her shoulders and legs, Lydia dared to open her eyes just the tiniest bit. Through her eyelashes, she saw the ground whizzing past below them at incredible speed, and she gasped and slung her arms around his neck, causing him to fumble a little in his flight. 

“Wha--oooohh, somebody’s peeking,” he chuckled, looking down at her as she buried his face in his neck, not caring about the moss tickling her forehead. 

“Don’t you dare drop me, Betelgeuse,” she growled, which only made him laugh more. 

Now that her hair wasn’t blowing everywhere and the icy air wasn’t cutting her to ribbons, Lydia squeezed her eyes shut, imagining that they were slowing down. She couldn’t recall seeing Betelgeuse fly before; the closest thing to it had been floating or the slow walk he had done with her twice before. 

He patted her shoulder twice and said, “You ready for this?”

“It depends on what is IS--” she cut herself off with a scream as Betelgeuse let go of her legs, letting them dangle over the grey earth hundreds of feet below them. Screaming over his laughter, she flung her arms around his neck and smacked him in the back of the head. “ARE YOU CRAZY?!”

“A little,” he shrugged coyly as he began his descent, his arms around her waist as she clung to him for dear life. 

When they hit the ground, Lydia's legs were wobbling worse than Jell-O, so she kept her arms around his neck to stay upright until feeling returned to her legs. His shoulders were still shaking with suppressed chuckles, and she smacked him on the back of the head, which only helped to release his laughter. 

“I...I hate you!” 

“I hate you, too. Now come along, dear.” 

He shrugged her arms off of him and spun her around by the hips, and Lydia gasped when she saw the white house towering over them, identical to her home in the living world. Instinctively, she took a step back and bumped into his chest. “How did… What?” she looked back up at his grinning face. 

“You’ll see. C’mon!” He grabbed her hand and started leading her towards the door. Lydia felt her face flush again and cursed herself for it. 

He led her right up the familiar steps and rang the doorbell, the doorbell that hadn’t worked in years, and Lydia blinked in surprise as the friendly chiming sound echoed into the house. 

“Just a minute, I’m coming! I’m coming!” 

Her heart skipped a bit, and she bit back tears. It was Adam’s voice. Instinctively, she squeezed Betelgeuse’s hand. 

Sure enough, a moment later, Adam answered the door, a little out of proverbial breath. Seeing Lydia, he grew a little wide-eyed as he looked her up and down and grabbed her shoulders. “Lydia! What happened? Are you okay?” he yelled as he spun her around and inspected her head to toe. 

“She’s not dead, A-dog,” Betelgeuse chuckled, and Adam sighed in relief. 

“Thank goodness… But if you’re not, then how--how are you here?”

Lydia smiled nervously. “Betelgeuse took me here. He said he had a surprise for me.” Wringing her hands, she looked down at her shoes and murmured, “Look, uh, I-I’m really sorry… If I knew you guys had a b-baby I wouldn’t have tried to stop you when you tried to leave the first time…”

“Oh… Lydia, no,” Adam soothed. “It’s okay. Come on, why don’t you two come in and I can grab Barbara so we can all talk about this? We’re not mad at you, sweetie.”

As they followed Adam into the house, Lydia wiped her tears on her sleeve, and Betelgeuse gave her a gentle pat on the back. After giving vague instructions to start water boiling, Adam ran upstairs, and Betelgeuse and Lydia sat down at the kitchen table. Currently, there were only a few older kids stirring around since the others seemed to be taking a community naptime. Just the feeling of so many little ghosts resting dormant made Betelgeuse yawn, and Lydia chuckled at him. 

“So they adopted all these kids?” Lydia asked, looking down the hall at the kids piled up on the couches with little hand-crocheted blankets. 

“Yep, sorta. They’re just takin’ care of ‘em until their real parents kick the bucket and come down t’ get ‘em. It’s a real shame when a kid dies before their parents. Usually when it happens, they either move on or get reborn without any say in it. The Maitlands are doin’ a real good thing.”

Lydia glanced over at him as she set the kettle on the stove. “And how do you know all that?”

“I used t’ work in CPS before I got transferred to bein’ Juno’s personal assistant,” Betelgeuse replied, studying his nails. “Basically just a glorified babysitter.” 

Lydia snorted, sat back down, and played with her hair. “I didn’t think you would be the kind to like kids.”

“I tolerate ‘em,” he said, rolling his eyes, but he immediately perked up and tapped his hands on the table with excitement when he noticed the Maitlands entering the room with a little bundle in Barbara’s arms. 

Lydia stared at the swaddle of blankets as the couple sat down opposite them at the table. “Is that--?”

Barbara waved her closer, and Betelgeuse leaned over the table, too, to see the baby girl’s round face, tiny nose, and curly brown hair. Lydia gasped a little, covering her mouth with her hand. 

“She’s beautiful… What’s her name?” she whispered, staying quiet since the baby seemed to be asleep. 

“Her name is Hope,” Barbara replied, and Lydia’s heart melted as she looked back down at the baby. 

“I...I…” she sat back down. Guilt was washing over her all over again. “I’m so sorry… I kept you away from her for so long…”

“Lydia...” Barbara sighed. Glancing over at Betelgeuse, she held the baby out to him. “Could you hold her for a minute, please?”

Lydia started in surprise when Betelgeuse made a short squeaking sound, and he eagerly--but gently--took Hope from Barbara. For a moment, she just stared at him, shocked that Barbara would ever let Betelgeuse hold something as precious and fragile as her child, but the Maitlands diverted her attention as Barbara began to speak again. 

“Lydia, please understand that you didn’t have anything to do with this. We stayed with you all that time because you needed us to be there with you when you were younger. You said so yourself when we tried to leave.”

Lydia nodded briefing, staring down at her hands silently. 

Adam and Barbara glanced at each other and clasped hands. “But now,” Barbara continued, “We...felt like you’re ready. You’re not a little girl anymore, and you aren’t all alone. You’re ready to go out and make a life for yourself, but we didn’t think you would go out and do that if we were holding you back. We didn’t want you to feel like we didn’t want you to leave the nest because you owed us your time. You don’t owe us anything. We just want you to be happy.” 

Lydia tried to nod again but burst into tears halfway through, and Adam reached across the table and grabbed her hand with his free hand. An arm wrapped around her shoulders as she wiped her tears with her now soaked sleeve, and she looked over to see Betelgeuse had scooted his chair closer to hers to get closer to her.

“Th-Thank you…” Lydia choked. She felt her tears begin to slow, and her shuddery breathing evened out as Adam gently rubbed her hand with his thumb. 

The kettle interrupted the small group, the harsh whistling waking up the baby girl and she began to fuss. While Adam got up to pour the tea, Lydia watched Betelgeuse in surprise. Hope was already calming down despite the frightening, mossy form leaning over her. Barbara, too, watched with a smile, but she didn’t seem surprised at all. 

When the tea was ready, Betelgeuse reluctantly let Barbara take Hope back upstairs to her bed.

“What kind of tea is this?” Lydia asked as she smelled the tea placed in front of her. “It smells delicious.”

“It’s the best kinda tea--dead people tea,” Betelgeuse snickered. 

“It’s just pomegranate,” Adam corrected.

The poltergeist sighed and rested his cheek in his hand. “Awww. We need to get Lydia some spirit tea sometime. She’d love it!” 

“Should I even ask?” Lydia asked hesitantly, glancing at the Maitlands.

“Spirit tea is a bit of a...specialty item.”

“Special-tea item?” 

Adam snorted, almost choked on his tea, and the two women groaned. Betelgeuse just grinned and took a dignified sip of his tea and Adam continued, “They sell it at the farmers’ market that comes around once a month. It’s where we get our tea, but we’ve never tried spirit tea. Apparently, they make it from the essence of flowers that people leave on graves. You can even set an order for them to get flowers from your grave. Our order is going to come in next month.”

Lydia gasped in delight. “That’s awesome! I need to try that.” Looking over at Betelgeuse, she grinned and asked, “Have you ever had spirit tea?”

“‘Course I have,” Betelgeuse scoffed. “Any ghost worth his salt’s tried spirit tea. A’course, I’ve never had tea from my grave, but…” 

“Oh? Do you want us to ask for you next time the farmers’ market comes?” Barbara asked, setting down her cup. *

He just shrugged. “It’ll be a game of no dice, Babs. My grave’s not marked.” 

The table went silent. Betelgeuse slurped at his tea loudly to break up the quiet, but the other three at the table didn’t react as they stared at him. 

“This is getting creepy.”

“You don’t have a grave, Betelgeuse?” Adam asked quietly. “In the model…”

He shrugged. “I made that one. I don’t even have a grave here. Civil servants don’t get a place in the graveyard. If they did try to make spirit tea for me, it’d probably just taste like pond water--if the pond’s still there after all these years.”

“Betelgeuse… I’m so sorry,” Barbara whispered. 

“Hey! Hey, I don’t need pity, okay?” He abruptly stood from his chair. “You guys done with your tea? I’ve got something to show you.”

The others glanced down at their empty cups and nodded vaguely, still a little in shock. Leading them into the living room, Betelgeuse spun around to face them and cracked his knuckles, and his hands sparked with electricity. “Notice anything different?” 

The Maitlands glanced around their living room, but Lydia just watched Betelgeuse, eyebrows raised. Finally, Adam pointed at the door behind the chuckling Betelgeuse and exclaimed, “There wasn’t a door there!” 

“Give the man a prize!” Betelgeuse replied, awarding him with a dignified golf clap. “Babes, you wanna do the honors?” 

“Do I?” Lydia snarked, but, nevertheless, she stepped forward and opened the door. 

Her eyes widened when she saw Delia with her headphones and Walkman, painting away in the living room, unaware of anything else in the world. Stepping forward, she entered the house. Percy, her cat who had hidden in the basement from the strange entity who had taken up residence in his house, was the first to notice her, looking up from his perch on the arm of the couch. 

She looked back over her shoulder at the three ghosts standing on the other side of the door in the identical, though perhaps less modern, living room. With a gasp, she ran back into the Maitland’s living room and grabbed the Maitlands’ hands, pulling them into the living world. Seamlessly they passed through as they stared around at their home in the realm of the living, but smiles were coming upon their once confused faces. Betelgeuse stood smugly in the doorway as they and Lydia returned to him. 

After Lydia shut the door again, they all let out a breath and looked over at Betelgeuse. 

“So...we can just come over and see you whenever we want…?” Barbara asked quietly, and Betelgeuse nodded.

“Anytime, Bobby. The door’s open 24-7. As long as I exist, that door will, too.” 

The Maitlands looked at each other and grinned with excitement and grabbed hands, but Lydia just stared at him as a huge smile began to grow on her tear-blotched face. Rushing forward, she grabbed him by the lapels of his black and white suit. 

“Oh, Betelgeuse--I could kiss you!” 

“You could,” he mused.

Lydia chuckled and shook her head as she threw her arms around his neck. “I’ll just give you a big hug, instead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this newest chapter, and feel free to tell me what you think! The last exchange between Lydia and Betelgeuse in this chapter is actually a reference to the ending of the first episode of the 1989 cartoon, and I'm happy to put in little references to all three Beetlejuice mediums wherever I can! Until next week!


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